I learned this week of the Pascal Greeting
tradition. I wondered out loud to my husband when the tradition fell out of
favor, if it indeed had. I haven't heard
of it and don't think anyone has ever greeted me with "He is risen!"
to which I should have replied "Truly, He is risen!" This greeting is a wonderful reminder of the joy that
Jesus brings and personally, it makes my heart sing to say it. He is risen, he is risen indeed!
Today I wanted to
talk to you about doors, specifically opening doors. The process of sharing your faith is a lot
like learning to open doors. When you
start to open those doors, you start on a path that leads you and others around
you, to God. But even getting that door
open can seem like a daunting task sometimes.
I'm not always good at opening doors.
I tend to stay in my own little room, oblivious to those around me, to
their joy, their pain, their questions.
A few years ago, I
found myself in a situation I never thought I would be in: sitting in a
courthouse, waiting for my divorce attorney to meet me. It was not a high-point in my life. My world had been disrupted in a way I
couldn't imagine and yet, here I sat in this cold, hard building with a bunch
of strangers bustling about all probably feeling the same thing. Maybe it's my heightened sense of literary
drama, but it always seems to me you can feel the pain in those places. Courthouses usually mean nothing but pain and
anger and distrust. There are so many
emotions on display, right out there, raw and uncensored. Being the closed-door kind of person I am,
that makes it all the more uncomfortable to me.
But, there I sat, by myself, watching so many dramas unfold and feeling
utterly alone. I had brought a book to
read, knowing that I would probably have some time to kill, but I couldn't read
it. Nerves, anxiety, whatever it was, I
couldn't concentrate so I just sat there. Close by, there was a women sitting
on a bench, intently staring at an index card.
Now, as I said before, I'm a closed-door person; I have a very hard time
talking to strangers (I think my parents were probably a little too successful
with that whole stranger-danger lesson), but something moved in me to speak to this
woman. So, I asked her what was on her
card. I can't remember if she read it
aloud or just handed it to me, but this is what it said "Are not five
sparrows sold for just 2 pennies? And
yet, not one of them is forgotten or uncared for in the presence of God. But the very hairs of your head are all
numbered... Do not be struck with fear or seized with alarm; you are of greater
worth than many flocks of sparrows."
That verse from Luke spoke to
me. In a time of my life where I felt
alone, that I had made some terrible mistakes and had no worth in God's eyes, a
stranger shared God's word with me, she shared her faith. She didn't know that
some stranger was going to ask her about the card in her hand when she wrote
it; she carried it for herself, for her own comfort. But her faith came through on that card and
in the end, she passed it onto me. We
talked for a while and I learned that she too, was in the middle of a terrible
divorce. She too was worried about the
impact on her family, she too was worried about what people would think of
her. But that card, that verse from Luke, reminded her that we are never forgotten.
I never asked her name and I probably will never see her again in this
life, but the gift of faith that she gave me that day won't ever leave me. I cherish that card and it's message.
Sharing your faith is
like opening a door. And sometimes, a
stranger will see that open door and walk through it.
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