Once Upon a Time…
there was a
child born to a single mother, single
in every sense of the word. The child was special, said to be a king, and his
birth was announced by angels. He lived an ordinary life, at least for a while, living
among his subjects without distinction, his royalty perfectly camouflaged, like
the secret crawlspace behind the barn that concealed him in many a game of
hide-and-seek. His mother alone replayed the angels’ heavenly declaration and
the earthy pains of his birth like a movie in her mind’s eye, each night as she
closed her real eyes to catch some much needed sleep.
While the
hidden prince did his chores, had foot races with his brother and learned the
trade of the other man of the house, his heavenly pedigree was pulling him away
from the ordinary like an outgoing tide. He awaited his cue, supporting his widowed
mother until he traded his trade to be about some other business. No one foresaw
that the man from Nazareth (who could have been the man from Brockton or
Detroit or East LA), would begin a campaign to turn the world upside down; where
the first would be called last and the poor blessed; welcoming in the outcast and casting out the in crowd. He made sick people well
and well people...well, sick.
He liked
boats but didn’t need swimming lessons because he could simply walk across the
white caps. He could even change the weather. Speaking of weather, he looked exactly
like the sun one day and his friends weren’t sure which was which. His words
were telling, but it was hard to be certain what they actually told.
He was a
truth bearer - The Truth, in a Way - a
PhD, a prophet who knew your name (and so much more) before you could introduce yourself. But in
all of this, he never looked like the one thing he truly was. You know, what
the angels had said about him, - “a king who will save his people”. The last
thing he could have passed for was a king, which disappointed everyone - so much promise.
So the
hidden king rose to fame and just days later fell from grace on a pole where
they strung up derelicts and scum bags. Silence alone remained. Grief for a
few; relief for most. Then after three gray days of April showers, the bud
opens and the grave opens and open wounds now painless are the fingerprint of
his identity into which they all must put their fingers. He is sometimes
fleshy, sometimes ghostly – a “now you see him, now you don’t” presence who is
a gardener, a walking-along-the-road-scholar, and a beach vendor serving up breakfast
burritos.
It’s a fairy
tale ending to the story of God that began with some newlyweds in a garden in Iraq, of all places, and a handhewn
barge full of animals and one family who won the lottery. It’s the story of the
sea all gathered up into walls like a giant aquarium with a dry sidewalk right
down the middle. It’s the story of a child born to a teenage virgin and a dead man cooking the catch-of-the-day on a campfire. It’s a fairy tale if you want to call it that, one that a child
listens to with eyes all aglow, all things being plausible.
Doesn’t
every culture and time generate their own version of this – God’s story –
where the epic conflict between good and evil unfolds and princes are disguised
beneath bumpy green skin and sons discover their true identity, exchanging
their allegiance from darkness to light? Doesn’t the gospel ask us to step into
the looking glass and follow the yellow brick road? Isn’t the gospel itself
God’s trail of holy breadcrumbs that safely lead us home? No wonder we're asked to lighten up and become like little children if we want to see the heavens open. Can we read the story through
any other than a child’s eyes?
This is,
after all, God’s unique story. It is the essence of life; the story that guides,
uplifts and warns; passed along from generations before us to weave with our
own - in this very place and time - tenuous chapters that we read even as they are being
written.
A fairy
tale, it’s fair to say, whose author is God who can write whatever he
wants. A serpent can certainly talk, a bush can burn and be ever-green and the
senseless death of one so good brings life to all. The key is to recognize ourselves,
and one another, in this epic tale, living players in the thick of God’s plot
until the too-good-to-be-true ending truly happens and we find ourselves living
with the Author of our faith, happily ever after.
Step into
the story. Become like a child and believe.
