Not A Sparrow Falls


Walking back to my car after Church, I saw this deceased sparrow on the city brick sidewalk. It made me think of Matthew 10:29 where Jesus is consoling his Disciples that they are not to worry about what man can do to them, because God the Father knows and cares for them and He will not let them fall until His purposes are accomplished for them. It is going to be hard Jesus warns them, but have hope. A hard hope. The harder your hope the more you can handle with grace.  

Jesus adds that we are worth much more than many sparrows which would now qualify Him as a "Speciesist"--asserting that humanity has a special place in the Cosmos being made in God's image. That is a wonderful blessing yet also a terrible burden if we are alienated from God. Echoes of Eden, the introduction of Death into the Creation, is shown simply by a sparrow falling to the ground.

I wasn't going to go to Church today...I wanted to stay home and just lay around. The winter is wearing me out and the cold slushy snows have become dirty and grimy. More snow is on the way but I am ready to move on. Spring flowers, bring it. So, seeing a dead bird just seemed like one more depressing image of a dreary day. Taking a picture of a dead bird certainly would seem oddly macabre to passersby. It made me sad.

The greatest fear in life is purposeless suffering, disease, persecution, death, made even more so if all of the adverse experiences don't amount to a hill of beans in the end. All the downside, with no upside. We are gone into the ground and shall not rise again. Now, that is discouraging. Like a dead bird on a city sidewalk Universe. We  live, we die, and those who come to our future funeral maybe shed a tear or two and then sit down and eat some potato salad at the Wake (Tony Campolo said the potato salad part).

People of God, I tell you the truth, one of these days you are going to die, and they're going to drop you in a hole, and they're going to throw dirt in your face, and they're going to go back to the church and eat potato salad. But the only question is, What do you leave behind? Are you going to leave behind a title - President of Rotary, Vice-president of this? Are you going to have an obituary with a list of titles? Or are there going to be people standing around your grave giving testimonies - testimonies - testimonies.

The Christian message is that our lives are important to God and this life, whatever it is, is just the first step of existence.The lessons, the heartache, and even the passing joys, are tutors for life in the future world that we are being prepared for. If we really get this, then every moment is imbued with meaning. We are set free from the existential loneliness of moving the pile of rocks of our lives from Pointless A to Pointless B.

If we trust Christ, we shall rise with Him. And His testimony is true.        


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