Reflections

Birmingham, Alabama, Christmas 1968

Boxing Day. The Day After Christmas when, in British tradition, one boxes up gifts to take to the poor (is this where we get “re-gifting”?). As good a day as any for reflection on the year past.

2011 has been a very good year for me. Exhausting, but good. My year was shaped by disasters. The very events that brought destruction and pain to so many others have been exactly the same events that provided fresh purpose and meaning for me. It seems that the greater the problems around me, the more opportunities I have to be a blessing and to be blessed.

The North Carolina tornadoes of mid-April left a trail of destruction and death such as our part of the country has rarely seen. The map of the storm tracks looked like some giant beast had ripped the land with massive claws, gouging out parallel lines of terror. All across the eastern half of the state, homes, businesses and entire communities were laid waste by the whimsical power of the swirling winds.

Then in late August, Hurricane Irene cut across eastern North Carolina, and gusting winds after hours of soaking rains made it a very bad day for trees and for any houses or garages or fences or wires under them. Large areas were described – accurately – as “looking like a war zone.” Electricity was out for days, or even weeks, across hundreds of square miles, and blue tarps spread like a fungal plague across smitten roofs.

There have also been other, less dramatic, disasters. Yesterday – Christmas – our church spent much of the day preparing and serving lunch and singing Christmas carols at the local soup kitchen. Fellow servants were there to distribute socks, towels and Bibles and to help with distributing the food. Dozens of men and women – young and old, black and white – came to eat. As I looked at the faces, many of them wrinkled like baskets of old laundry, I was aware that each one had experienced its own individual disaster.

In the afternoon yesterday, Patsy and I met with friends for what has become another of our family’s Christmas traditions: singing carols around the hospital. Starting in the emergency room and ICU, we then went to the top floor and sang our way down. I wore my Santa’s cap, and Patsy wore felt reindeer antlers to try to bring a little cheer to our audience. On every floor – except, perhaps, the maternity wing – we knew that each room held its own variation on the theme of personal disaster.

Christmas is about God’s response to the ultimate disaster of our separation from Him. As I reflect on the disasters and responses of the past year, I am reminded yet again of the huge privilege I have that when others suffer destruction and loss, I am allowed to be one of God’s personal representatives of His disaster response.

Love is Expensive

As I prepare for my trip, I am being rudely reminded of the costliness of loving.

I have been scurrying around, trying to get all sort of loose ends tied up and trying to make sure I have bought all the various do-dads and gizmos I need to take. I haven’t yet dared add up all the stuff I have put on that credit card – never mind the price of the airline tickets themselves!

Very early on, as I began to be involved in disaster-response ministries, I realized that disaster response is ALWAYS expensive. One may try to be as good a steward as possible with cost containment, but there is just no way around the fact that disasters are expensive. And disaster response is really expensive.

I suppose that fact should be especially obvious to us this weekend, shouldn’t it?

Easter weekend marks our remembrance of God’s amazing response to humanity's ultimate disaster.

Easter weekend reminds us that God, in Jesus Christ, paid an almost incredible price when He sent Jesus, the “lamb slain before the foundation of the world,” as His Ultimate Disaster Response.

The Bible says He did it simply because He “loved the world so much.”

Things haven’t changed. Disaster response is still terribly expensive, and we still do it because of God’s love.

Because He loved us, we can love. But we do so knowing that love is always expensive.