Streams of Mercy
We gathered at Jackson Springs Presbyterian on Ash Wednesday to receive the blessing of a smudged cross of ashes, and to hear once more the words: “Dust you are and to dust you shall return.” When I lead such services, I add the words, “May Christ raise you to new life,” and the journey begins.
One of my Lenten disciplines each year is to be alert to lessons gleaned from readings I do from day to day. I recently read an e-mail a dying man wrote his dear friend, which was published in that friend’s church newsletter.
“The hardest part of dying is the haunted hunch that I’m leaving loose ends, that I don’t have enough time to complete things, important things … There’s something about completion, a satisfaction which comes only with tying up loose ends and bringing a story to its proper conclusion … If our story finds completion or if it ends abruptly and too soon, still, it is a part of a larger story whose author is grander than we are.”
He goes on to explain the subtle distinction between being finished and being complete – something I’d never thought of before. “To finish something is to bring it to an end. To complete something is to tie up all the loose ends.” Recalling Jesus cry from the cross, “It is finished,” he goes on to say that “Jesus life is finished, but Christ’s life continues – resurrection, ascension, glory, and finally, someday, completion. But not yet. Being finished doesn’t necessarily mean being complete … Lent invites our contemplation of this truth and the incorporation of our story into it. If Jesus can finish in incompletion, well, I suppose I can too. Penitence, then is the embrace of our personal incompleteness. Confession is our willingness both to see and to say this truth. Heaven is God’s tying up the loose ends.”
I’ve thought a lot about these words in recent days. When my life is finished, it’s finished, but not complete. God will bring it to completion in ways known only to God. God will tie up all the loose ends; God will perfect all that concerns me. (Psalm 138:8) As one growing older and dealing with health concerns, this is good news! In the words of our Brief Statement of Faith:
“In life and in death we belong to God …
with believers in every time and place,
we rejoice that nothing in life or in death
can separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I give thanks for those who share their journeys of life and faith in ways that light the way for others; for our faithful God who is with us from day to day and all our days; and for those streams of mercy, never ceasing.
Elizabeth