She Took My Hand

    

   Twenty-year-old, Alexis Fulbright, had more to complain about than most.  I preached her premature funeral a year ago.  But recently I found a note about her I’d recorded seven years previously.  I wrote that I was nervous, but suspected it was one of those "now or never" moments when I needed to be bold.  So, I reached across the pew and offered Alexis my hand…

    At age 14 she was a beautiful, yet smaller than her younger sisters, who did not have cystic fibrosis. Periodically Alexis’ lungs filled up.  She became susceptible to the infections that eventually took her from us. Yet, her ill-health made it easier for her to pay better attention to the story of creation than other kids. 

      The story goes that God formed Eden as a small temple compound where life could thrive.  Outside it was scorching barrenness and surging breakers of death. Yet, God erected floodgates that put limits beyond which such chaos could not travel. Still, these forces seemed maddeningly resurgent; so much so that Hebrews 2:8 says, “presently we do not see everything subject to [God]."

     Biblical creationism would not have us boast that "everything happens for a reason." Cystic fibrosis is not part of God’s inscrutable eternal plan.  Insurance companies are wrong to call natural disasters "acts of God.” The floodwaters of the Sea do their damage in defiance of God's creative will. The scholar, Jon Levenson, says that scripture never explains why evil exists; evil just needs "blasted."     

     We are tempted to speculate about why God allows injustice to persist, but these partial answers will be unsatisfying until we remember we are only in the middle of the story of creation. The story ends with death, itself, destroyed in the lake of fire.  One day there will be no more reckless Sea. Injustice will get blasted. God will make evils like cystic fibrosis right.        

      And so, I tell you that it was no small joy that as I began thanking God for his resurrection victory over death, young Alexis reached up and took my hand.  And God saw that this was good.