Jack Hardaway
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A cool stream in River Falls on a hot day.
The sun rising that day over the ocean.
The smile of a dear friend, that thing they did with their eyes.
A brave woman fighting pain and cancer, slowly walking down the church aisle to pray.
The cook stirring the pot at the soup kitchen, year after year.
That yellowing portrait photo of my grandmother in her wedding gown over the hearth.
Children on the playground, swinging back and forth.
An old photo of my family around the table.
Susan sitting with her pot of tea in the mornings.
Running across the rail road tracks just before the sun comes up.
Remembering my mother sitting up after giving birth to my sister.
Moments of silence before the holy.
Signs of life. The things that keep us going, inspiring us. They make us good.
What are they?
We see signs in the Gospel today, signs of the Gospel, making visible what is invisible, signs of life, bringing life to a dying world.
God is shown forth and bread and fish multiply, a feast out of nowhere, where little becomes way more than enough. The sign of God. Life erupts. The Eucharist erupts.
Right afterwards, the darkness rises up in protest, the storm on the sea, the disciples are caught in it. Jesus walks across. They are afraid. He says, “fear not.” And then the amazing thing, as soon as they choose to receive Jesus into their boat, they are delivered, they suddenly arrive on shore. The darkness is driven away.
Signs of life in a dying world.
Jesus is that sign of life erupting and death and darkness being driven back.
We finish today the class on The Chronicles of Narnia, the classic young adult series.
C.S. Lewis had a knack of offering up simple vivid images of how God brings life.
In one story the characters arrive at the beginning of creation, they hear the divine song bringing everything into existence. Suddenly the blackness erupts into light as the blank sky is filled with stars, planets, and constellations, all in an instant.
And one character, the Cabby, says, “Glory Be! I’d ha’ been a better man all my life if I’d known there were things like this.”
Signs of life.
Lewis does it again, with the children at the end of their adventure, they see Aslan, the giant Lion who is the presence of God, whose face is like a “sea of tossing gold.”
Lewis writes, “The memory of that moment stayed with them always, so that as long as they both lived, if ever they were afraid or angry, the thought of all that golden goodness, and the feeling that it was still there, quite close, just around the corner or just behind some door, would come back and make them sure, deep down inside, that all was well.”
Signs of life.
The Gospel is that life has arrived, the storm has been pushed back, Jesus has brought the boat to shore.
And that life can be seen erupting everywhere.
And it makes us good.
And it carries us through.
Watch for it, always, life erupting.
Glory Be!