Heads up: lots of words ahead... a Thank You note at ¶1 and then a blog entry at ¶4

Dear Friends,

First: Thank you! For your prayers, your texts, your cards, your e-mails, your meals/treats/goodies - all of which convey your care - thank you, indeed. I’ve often told mourners that the church will “crowd surf” them through the disorienting early days of grief (and then some!); now, over the past week or so, I’ve felt y’all crowd surfing us as a family. So, thank you, thank you. (Note: If the notion of “crowd surfing” is new to you, see below for a photo... Which makes me want to add that I have yet and hope never to be the in-real-life object of crowd surfing, so I mean it in a purely figurative sense of being supported, sustained and encouraged through a difficult season!)

Extra thanks to George Spransy for stepping in for me for two Sundays in a row. When I got that wee-hours-of-Sunday-morning phone call I was trying to figure out how to get down to Wilmington and back again in time to preach on November 30. (In hindsight, I know that’s crazy talk; in my defense, it was 2 am!) Once I saw a bulletin and realized that George would surely be at church since he was listed as Liturgist, I knew he would gladly cover for me and I could relax into knowing worship would proceed without me. That freed me to keep my undivided attention on my Mother that day. Then, when it became clear that a family graveside service would happen this past Saturday, I was glad all over again for George’s willingness to step in for me once more on December 7. Thank you, George!

Finally, I want to thank NRPC’s staff, Session and Diaconate (though they are not the only ones to have pitched in over the past nine days) for the ways they’ve stepped in. In particular, Rebecca and Terri shared news and handled needs in ways I’m only now beginning to comprehend. And I’m grateful to our family Deacon, Fran Lawrence, for her good care for René, Ben and me over the past week or so. Thanks, too, to Deacon Margaret Albert for her solo leadership of the Surviving Grief in a Season of Joy workshop that I was supposed to lead with her on the 30th. Finally, NRPC’s Elders have kept the work of the church moving forward into this Advent season - while keeping my inbox nearly message-free in the process. Thank you, one and all.

Now, on to the blog entry. I’m not sure this entry will have anything to do with the sermon for Advent 3 on December 14, but I do want to share an Advent image I have been thinking about and wrestling with as I’ve leaned into my grief over my Father’s death last week.

More than a decade ago I attended a worship workshop that explored connections between Advent and Lent. I almost didn’t even attend the workshop, because if I’m honest, I kinda find the mash-up rather unsettling. For example: One participant (or maybe she was a leader?) at the workshop shared something she’d tried at a Christmas Eve communion service. In particular, she said that, during the words of institution on Christmas Eve, she’d cradled the communion loaf in her arms as though it was baby Jesus. So, the babe-in-arms image was mashed-up with “This is my body, given for you,” you know?

I have no idea whether my face revealed my reaction to other workshop attendees, but, at least on the inside, my nose was wrinkled up, my head was shaking “No,” and I was thinking, “I don’t like that!” On Christmas Eve I’m simply not ready to think about that just-born child who was God’s love made incarnate as the crucified, dead and resurrected Lord. Of course the connection is there on Christmas eve (incarnation is the beginning of it all) and the connection is unmistakable when we come to the Lord’s Table on Christmas Eve - in birth and death, Jesus is love incarnate - but somehow the idea of cradling that loaf pushed me from manger to cross a little too explicitly a little too quickly.

As I sit here writing, I’m not even sure what has pushed that unsettling image to the front of my mind this last week. Maybe it is because I’ve experienced in a new way the hair’s breadth of distance between life and death. My Dad was 89 when he died on November 30 and his declining health meant that his death wasn’t absent from our radar, yet we weren’t exactly anticipating it, either. And, in good Advent fashion, we’re meant to stay alert to the fact that the “end of the age” might well be as close as our very next breath. Maybe the communion-bread-baby-Jesus somehow embodies that fine fine line between life and death?

Or, maybe it’s the different sort of grieving one does when the deceased is someone who gave you life? People (and my pastoral studies) have long told me that a parent’s death is different from any other. And what I’ve experienced when grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends have died is entirely different from my experience of my Dad’s death. Not to mention, I’ve sure thought a lot about my Dad as a child this week as I’ve thought about how he became the person he was. So maybe that Advent-Lent mash-up of baby Jesus with the crucified, dead and resurrected Lord is somehow coming to mind because I’ve been connecting Charles the child and my deceased Dad all week long?

Or maybe it is as simple as recognizing that our practice of bearing witness to resurrection means that there is life and there is death and, by the grace of God, there is life again. Maybe that’s the ultimate mash-up of Advent and Lent, Easter and Christmas - that it all begins with life and it all culminates in life, too? ’Cuz at the core of the Christian faith is the affirmation that we can face our own mortality because we know death does not get to have the last word!

Hmm. Not sure I’ll cradle the communion loaf in my arms on December 24, but I do expect I’ll still be thinking about that mash-up when I’m proclaiming good news from behind that Christmas Eve communion table. Until then, I hope you’ll consider how the peace, hope, joy and love of Advent find their culmination in an occupied manger, an empty tomb and the long-anticipated age to come.

See you Sunday.

Peace,

Lisa

Photo by Holly Spangler on Unsplash