A Walk with Jesus

{A few years ago I wrote out this imaginary walk with Jesus.  Here's part of it.  It fits right now.}

One day I had to walk to the funeral home because a friend had died.  It wasn't until the walk home that I realized I wasn't walking alone.  I guess I knew the Master was there, we just hadn't talked much since I got the news. So, like throwing a rock through a window the first words broke out, "I just don't get it." 

Jesus just walked with me and let me talk.

"It makes no sense!  He had a family, a future.  It's not like he died of old age."  The tears that were too ashamed to reveal themselves in front of everyone snuck out and boldly raced down my face.

I looked over.  The Master wept also.  He told me once he cried every time I did, I just never saw it before. "Death wasn't in the original plan you know."

I knew he said something, but it didn't register.  Hopelessness grew in my verbiage, "All could I say to his family was, 'I'm sorry'."

"Are you?" 

"In ways that go deeper than words can say." 

"Then 'I'm sorry' was the perfect thing to say," he returned in a way that slightly calmed my spirit.  "They don't need an answer you don't have.  They need to know they're not alone."

That just didn't seem like enough to me.  I pushed my mind trying to think of better words I could have given them, "But what about something more holy like, 'God needed an angel.'"

The Master shook his head, "That's not holy, it's a lie.  Death doesn't happen to populate heaven with winged creatures in white robes."

"What about 'he's in a better place?'" I retorted.

We continued taking slow steps as he continued to explain, "The fact that you miss your friend is not lessened by religious statements of where he is."  

I remembered overhearing one of the church people at the funeral home, "What about, 'God does these things to teach us?'"

The Master quickly replied, "That's not comfort, it's cruel.  Do you believe that the Father would actually do that so that loved ones could learn some lesson?"

I shook my head.  

He followed with two questions that seemed difficult to answer, "Why is it you feel you have to say something profound?  Would my saying the right thing to you right now cause sorrow to disappear?"

I answered both questions, "I don't know.  It's pretty hard to imagine."  No words can erase this kind of pain.  Nothing was louder than my inner mourning.  Words can't be big enough to fill the gap of a friend.

"Is it possible your greatest need is not a cliché to paint over pain?  Is it possible that sorrow is part of the way you have been knit together so that you have even more in common with my Father?"

"Why would my pain give me something in common with your Father?  How could God know about the pain of a senseless death of a friend?"

The Master stopped and put his hand on my elbow.  I turned toward him as he slowly lifted up his hands.  The sleeves of his robe exposed the scars on his wrists from the nails that were driven through them.  My eyes darted from his eyes to his wrists as my spirit caught a fraction of the pain the Father must have gone through to witness the mistreatment of his son.  

Words would have been a distraction.

"The Father knows the pain of loss also," the Master whispered.

I had something in common with God... pain.  Nothing else needed to be said we continued walking.  I was glad he was near.  I still had questions and I still had clouds of pain in the core of who I was, but the Master said the Father isn't afraid of shadows.

I noticed my driveway and home out of the corner of my eye.  We kept walking.

Mourning,

Pastor Dave