False Comforts

I was going to try to write a whole post on various cliches we Christians like to throw about in times of trouble, things we like to say to offer comfort and hope to people when we can't figure out what really needs to be said, if anything.

But I'm going to just focus on one. It usually goes something like this:

"Wow, that's amazing that (so-and-so) survived (such-and-such)! God must really have a special plan for that person!"

I'm sure you've come across this at some point in your life (whether you were the one speaking it or receiving it.) But today, I want to just break this down for you, piece by piece. Let's look at what this is actually saying.

First, I'll give you the context behind this post. Somebody on facebook had posted something about a little girl who had survived the Sandy Hook shooting by playing dead. As I was scrolling down through the comments, the following two struck me:

"That child has purpose, a calling on her life."

"How sad is that, but God had a plan for that little girl!"

At first, these seem like deep, powerful statements that pay tribute to God's saving grace. But if we look at them more closely, really analyze what they are saying, we can see that they are actually saying that mankind has no free will and that God plays our lives like a giant chess game.

So, let us talk about what these are ACTUALLY saying. 

To say that a lone survivor of this horrible tragedy "has purpose," a "calling on her life," and that "God had a plan" for her, is inadvertently saying that those who did not survive did not have a calling on their lives, or that they were somehow not part of God's plan. This kind of statement basically tells the families of the other survivors, "Your family member wasn't important enough to God for Him to save."

This is a TERRIBLE thing to say. Mainly because it is absolutely not true.

God's "plans" for humans have never included death. In the beginning, when the world was perfect, the way God intended it, He walked in the garden with Adam and Eve. He was present, here, with his creation. That's how it was supposed to always be. And before the Fall (before sin entered the world), THERE WAS NO DEATH. Why would there be no death? Well, if we were all perfect, then there was no reason to die. Death came about as a result of human decision to defy God. In essence, we brought death upon ourselves. (Well, Adam and Eve did. I mean, I certainly wasn't around six or seven or however many thousand years ago. Maybe you were. But anyway. I digress.) That first act of human decision had two very distinct results: 

     1. We could no longer live forever. I mean, we were messed up.
     2. We now had the ability to always choose between right and wrong and understand our decisions.

This whole "free will" thing that Christians talk about all the time--it doesn't just affect the person making the decision. It affects other people as well. Possibly many people. There's that whole domino-effect idea, where one decision will turn into another and another and another. Or, you know, six degrees of Kevin Bacon, if you will. But with fewer movies and more real-life events.

So, a decision you make today, as inconsequential as it may seem, may affect some person you have never met--and may never meet--two years from now.

The whole point of that discussion is this: To say that God's plan was to save one person would mean that His plan was also that 26 other people would die. And not only that, but that His plan was for Adam Lanza to go into that school with guns and open fire on innocent little children. 

Let me make this clear: God did not want Adam Lanza to shoot anyone. Ever. God does not want bad things to happen. Ever. He does not sit at some judge's bench in the sky with a giant gavel commanding one person to die because someone else needs to learn a lesson, or deciding that some person has had a full enough life and so it's "their time to go."

God is the father standing next to the closed coffin, weeping with his fists clenched on the cold, hard wood, weeping because he doesn't understand why this happened to his child, why this happened to anyone's child. Weeping because he doesn't understand how someone can make the decision to take guns into a school and kill children, for God's sake.

God is the mother standing outside the school watching her blood-covered daughter run to her and thinking, "My God, she's alive! My baby is alive!" And then feeling a pain in her heart that will never quite leave her, because she has friends standing there with her who will never see their babies again.

God is the pastor, the friend, the counselor, trying to bring comfort and peace to those grieving their losses, holding them and weeping with them quietly, because there is nothing to say, nothing that can ever really answer the questions. 

But God is NOT the person on a message board, or in the church, or at work, saying that there must be a purpose for that lone survivor's life. 

Because the thing is, there is a purpose for every life.

Those twenty children, the six adults, and yes, even Adam Lanza--all of them had a purpose for their lives, whether that purpose had yet been realized or not. All of them were precious in God's eyes. Every single one of them. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.

So please don't go around talking about God's plan for this one and His purpose for that one, unless you are going to also talk about the beautiful, purposeful, important lives that were sadly cut short. Not by God's will. But by the decision of a human being. 

If you can't think before you speak, then just stay silent. It's okay to not have answers. And it's okay to not know what to say. I promise. 

La Pieta

La Pieta. The Pity. One of Michelangelo's most famous works. And why not? It's a beautiful, intricate sculpture. But beyond that, it captures something that is simultaneously so often glossed over and yet so difficult to really understand: the emotions of a parent upon the death of a child.

We tend to look at the Christmas story in light of our religious knowledge of the event: Jesus, son of God, was born of a virgin, blah blah blah. We know the story so well, I think that, oftentimes, the deeper meaning is lost to us. You can't talk about the birth of Jesus without talking about the death of Jesus. The one leads to the other.

But what did this mean for Mary, who was, first and foremost, not "the chosen one of God" or "the blessed virgin," but simply a mother?

I'm really not sure that, thirty-four-ish years earlier, when Mary told the angel, "May it be unto me as you say," this picture popped into her head as she thought of her future with this child of God. Sure, the angel mentioned something about Jesus being the savior of the world. But what did that really mean? And anyway, that was so far away. Right now, he would just be a baby. And babies are cute.

But of course, the pregnancy didn't come without its hitches. I mean, Joseph kind of wasn't sure at first if he could really trust Mary. God is the father of your child? Really? And then the looks people gave her... But Joseph had a visit from an angel also. And so then he was cool. He protected her, watched out for her and for this unborn baby who was supposed to somehow save the world.

I can't imagine that, on that night when Jesus was born, messy and covered in birth fluids and squirming and screaming and trying to find Mary's breast because he was a hungry newborn, Mary thought that one day she would hold her son, this son, God's son, in her arms, and that his body would be cold and lifeless. When you hold this beautiful, amazing, wriggling new life, you're not thinking about the end of it. You're thinking about all the possibilities. You're thinking about what he's going to be like as a toddler, bringing you sticks and mudpies and bugs with broken wings. You're thinking about what he's going to be like when he goes to school, the kinds of friends he'll have, what you'll say when he talks back to you, how he'll get good marks on his assignments and garner compliments from his teachers for being such a good student. You're thinking about what he's going to be like as a teenager, which girls he might like, how strong he will be, how he will learn good work ethic from his father and build good, sturdy tables and wagons and houses. You're thinking about all the things that he will do in his life. You're thinking about his life.

I wonder if, as she held the limp body of her son, Mary thought back on all those hopes for him, if she thought back on all of those moments that had seemed, at the time, to not really matter. Did she kiss his cold forehead and remember the first time she kissed his warm, tiny baby forehead? Did she weep silently and watch her tears fall on his pale cheeks that used to be so rosy and had pulled up just so in the corner when he smiled at her? Did she brush the rumpled, matted hair from his brow and think back to how he had run around as a child with his hair all disheveled and he didn't even care?

Did she think back to that rush as she pulled his freshly-born body up to her chest, think back and remember that in that moment she had vowed to protect him with her life, because that's what mothers do? And now, as she looked down at his unmoving eyes, did she remember that vow and regret that this was the one thing she couldn't protect him from?

As a mother who has also experienced the loss of a child (though under very different circumstances), I can identify with the look on Mary's face in this sculpture. Her eyes are puffy and swollen from having cried out all her tears. Her lips are taut, unsmiling and unfrowning, because there is not a facial expression that could possibly convey the emotions in her heart. Her left hand is uplifted as if in question, speaking for her the only word she could probably think coherently: Why?

Tonight, a lot of mothers and fathers are sitting in living rooms, hospital rooms, police stations, with this look on their faces, with their hands uplifted, asking the same question of "Why? Oh, dear God why?" They are thinking back over all those little moments they might have missed, but are now forever lodged in their memories. They are remembering all the hopes and dreams they had for their children that will now never happen, all the possibilities that, in one moment of terror, have been forever lost.

In the coming days, their eyes will be swollen and puffy, their faces blank, because how can you really express that kind of grief and suffering? They will try to pull the remaining pieces of their lives back together, try to make some semblance of normal. But it will never be the same.

On that night, when Mary held her son, her precious little boy all grown up, in her arms, the world changed. Mary's world changed. But so did ours.

Because on that night that the Son of God died a tragic, horrific and humiliating death, we gained the possibility of the most beautiful life imaginable, one that transcends the normalcy of the every day, that goes beyond our finite understanding of life and death, and gives us a glorious freedom that we will not fully taste on this side of the curtain.

So while we come alongside these parents and family members and friends who have suffered such terrible loss, let us not lose touch with that deep vibration of expectancy. Because in the coming days, we will celebrate the birth of the Hope of the World, the Deliverance of Mankind. The one who conquered the power of death and brings us hope of a life to come.

To the families, friends, and loved ones of the victims of the tragedy in Newtown, CT today, I offer you my deepest sympathies, and please know that my most heartfelt prayers are being lifted to the King of Heaven for you this day and in the coming days. May your hearts find peace and wholeness in the inexplicable Love who comes down to sit with you and weep.