A new beginning - Easter 2014
Leaves, Worms And
A New Beginning
As it rained last night I listened to the wind in the trees and heard the birds sing as they pulled fat worms from the ground. When I was a child I would look at flowers and leaves and birds and the sky and people singing, and think, “When God made everything, it was perfect.” I would imagine all the perfect trees and birds and songs and people, and spotless and perfectly shaped and tuned and shining – the lion and the lamb playing, mosquitoes buzzing around in tiny formations tickling us, spiders performing like little trapeze artists for us to enjoy -until sin came to the world.
As it rained last night I listened to the wind in the trees and heard the birds sing as they pulled fat worms from the ground. When I was a child I would look at flowers and leaves and birds and the sky and people singing, and think, “When God made everything, it was perfect.” I would imagine all the perfect trees and birds and songs and people, and spotless and perfectly shaped and tuned and shining – the lion and the lamb playing, mosquitoes buzzing around in tiny formations tickling us, spiders performing like little trapeze artists for us to enjoy -until sin came to the world.
I could just see the blight and
poison and twistedness of sin spreading in all directions from Eve’s apple. The
Mosquitoes now loaded with parasites and looking for tender flesh to pierce,
viruses mutating into pathogens, each leaf slightly deformed, each song a bit
out of tune and with words that didn’t quite rhyme, the mothers and fathers
loving their children but acting out ancient hurts.
In my childish mind I would think, “if just one tree could produce a perfect leaf, if just one canary could sing the perfect song, if I could just write the perfect story or color just one picture staying in the lines, maybe then God would put everything back to how it should be, maybe he would take away all the hurts and stings and we would all be happy.” The older I got the more I realized how terribly bad things are in the world, and I gave up on the idea that people or birds or trees could ever do just one thing perfectly, anything at all, so that God could take away all the pain and sorrow in the earth and our hearts.
But last night I remembered that one little baby was a perfect baby. Oh, sure, he cried and kept his mom up at night, but that is baby perfection. And when he grew up he spilled his milk, and skinned his knees, broke his dad’s tools, and once he even got lost for 3 days without telling his parents where he was! Imagine that! And yet he still did it all perfectly. He was a pest as a teen, asking way too many questions, looking for his “real” father, bugging his brothers. As he grew older he took on too many burdens, shared too many griefs, touched too many lepers, laughed with too many prostitutes, drank with too many lowlifes, walked on the water too many times, forgave too many evil people. He didn’t heal all the people in every town, didn’t meet people’s expectations, didn’t overthrow an evil political system, didn’t convince his accusers of his innocence.
He couldn’t even die a decent death at a ripe old age, surrounded with a loving family and honors, after living a productive life, quietly drifting off in a dignified manner – no, he had to die an untimely death, shamefully naked before his mother, mocked, with violent men tearing his flesh. Worst of all, he died by mistake, accused of terrible things –lies, robbery, murder, rape, incest, horrible things, disgusting things – things he never did. All he had to say was, “It wasn’t me that did those horrible things, it was Gerry, and John, and Sam and Judith. Let them hang here instead of me,” - and he would have been spared the beatings and thorns and spit and humiliation and fists in his face.
But that death and that life counted in God’s eyes as a perfect thing, a perfect song, a perfect picture, a perfect love. And after that death God did wipe out all the evil and sorrow and pain, and began another ripple in the universe, a ripple of goodness and hope and new beginnings that has crossed centuries and will spread to every corner of our world. Jesus did that one perfect thing and today we are free!
In my childish mind I would think, “if just one tree could produce a perfect leaf, if just one canary could sing the perfect song, if I could just write the perfect story or color just one picture staying in the lines, maybe then God would put everything back to how it should be, maybe he would take away all the hurts and stings and we would all be happy.” The older I got the more I realized how terribly bad things are in the world, and I gave up on the idea that people or birds or trees could ever do just one thing perfectly, anything at all, so that God could take away all the pain and sorrow in the earth and our hearts.
But last night I remembered that one little baby was a perfect baby. Oh, sure, he cried and kept his mom up at night, but that is baby perfection. And when he grew up he spilled his milk, and skinned his knees, broke his dad’s tools, and once he even got lost for 3 days without telling his parents where he was! Imagine that! And yet he still did it all perfectly. He was a pest as a teen, asking way too many questions, looking for his “real” father, bugging his brothers. As he grew older he took on too many burdens, shared too many griefs, touched too many lepers, laughed with too many prostitutes, drank with too many lowlifes, walked on the water too many times, forgave too many evil people. He didn’t heal all the people in every town, didn’t meet people’s expectations, didn’t overthrow an evil political system, didn’t convince his accusers of his innocence.
He couldn’t even die a decent death at a ripe old age, surrounded with a loving family and honors, after living a productive life, quietly drifting off in a dignified manner – no, he had to die an untimely death, shamefully naked before his mother, mocked, with violent men tearing his flesh. Worst of all, he died by mistake, accused of terrible things –lies, robbery, murder, rape, incest, horrible things, disgusting things – things he never did. All he had to say was, “It wasn’t me that did those horrible things, it was Gerry, and John, and Sam and Judith. Let them hang here instead of me,” - and he would have been spared the beatings and thorns and spit and humiliation and fists in his face.
But that death and that life counted in God’s eyes as a perfect thing, a perfect song, a perfect picture, a perfect love. And after that death God did wipe out all the evil and sorrow and pain, and began another ripple in the universe, a ripple of goodness and hope and new beginnings that has crossed centuries and will spread to every corner of our world. Jesus did that one perfect thing and today we are free!
Gerry Gutierrez, Easter 2005
posted by Gerry (Linda) gutierrez at 8:19 PM
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