Come, Emmanuel

“You are not going to follow that bus!”  These were the emphatic words that my wife spoke to me some 23 years ago on our son’s first day of school.  I had thought that it would be a good idea.  There had been no practice run. The school bus would be transporting kindergartners through sixth graders.   I just wanted to make sure that he would get off the bus, enter the proper door of the school and make it to his kindergarten classroom.  He was so little, so innocent, so very precious.

One of the local funeral directors, a parishioner (and now an ELCA pastor), had a daughter who was starting kindergarten on the same day.  I told him about my overly protective plan to follow the school bus.  We had a good laugh when he told me that he actually had followed her bus!

Not long ago, my son discovered that I still have protective instincts.  He was in the passenger seat of the car when I had to make a quick stop.  As my seat belt locked up, my right hand reached across and flattened on his chest to hold him in place as if he were 10 years old.  I was a little embarrassed at my treating him like a child.

If I were sending a child back to school tomorrow, I think I would be tempted to start Christmas break early.  The horrific events of Friday in Newtown, Connecticut are still too fresh and our children seem so vulnerable.  I would have a hard time letting go of a hug and sending a child off to the bus stop.  Of course, common sense would eventually prevail and I would realize that I would have to let go sooner or later.  However, I would make no promises about not following the bus.

As much as we would like, we cannot protect our children or even ourselves from every danger.  We can and must work to make the world as safe a place as it can be.

With much, if not all, of this country, I grieve the loss of those precious children and their teachers and administrators in Newtown.  I hope that grieving parents are surrounded by caring people who know how to speak helpful words when words are necessary and know how to simply be present when silence is better.

In this season of Advent, we sing, “O come, O come Emmanuel.”  Emmanuel.  God with us.  It is wonderful and comforting to know that God truly is with us.  But, for a person who is in the depths of despair, it is a difficult, perhaps impossible, message to comprehend.  “God loves you,” are words that could ring hollow in the ears of someone in pain.  However, we can all bring Christ to another’s brokenness by simply being present with them.  We can be the presence of Christ in the emptiness.

May God be with you as you bear Christ to your neighbor.  --JC