REFLECTIONS ON FAITH AND LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER...
Our grandson was diagnosed with hepatoblastoma [liver
cancer] at 15 months. He underwent a year of intense chemotherapy and several
surgeries. It is not overstating to say that he died three times before he was
2 years old.
As grandparents, we had huge worries and concerns for the
awful stress on our daughter and her husband, and for Joe’s four-year-old
sister. We did a lot of care of Brigid during that time because Joe--and one or
both of his parents with him--was in the hospital 170 miles away almost all the
time.
Helen says she was never more sure of what she was to be
and do than when Joe was sick. That experience, she says, gave a whole new meaning
to “laying down one’s life.”
Laying down your life doesn’t mean dying necessarily, a physical death. In fact, most of the time it probably does not.
Laying down your life is similar to people laying down
garments and palm leaves for Jesus on that first Palm Sunday, to honor him as the bringer of life over against the bringer of death.
Because at the same time Jesus was coming into the city
through the back door, Pilate, the Roman head of the domination culture in
Jerusalem, was coming in through the front door, the gate on the other side of
the city, with all his pomp and power on display. For those with eyes to see,
it was a stark contrast, those two entrances. One was demanding life. One was
laying down life. Only one was successful.
When you lay down your life, that’s when you know who you
are. That’s when life begins.
JRMcF
Just a reminder that I write these columns for myself. I’m
glad if you get something out of them, too, but if I write with you in mind, I have
to write with a lot of “yous” in mind, and it confuses me. Thank you, though,
for reading.
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