We Just Have to Be Human - Service for Weary Hearts
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
December 19, 2024
Have you ever had days where everything seems a far
bigger struggle than it should be? Maybe when you didn’t feel well or were
recuperating from a procedure, or were trying
to figure out new medications. Maybe you were recovering from a shock or trying
to make sense after a loss. Maybe it is something else.
Maybe you were finally getting back on track and
something else blindsided you. Maybe such a time is very much in the present
now. Have you ever noticed that even the smallest inconvenience can feel like
the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Seemingly simple tasks feel fraught
with obstacles. “Why IS this so hard? Why don’t I know more, or see more?” or
my Dad’s favorite, “Why can’t it just be easy?” If you are here now, you know.
Well-meaning people will say, “You’ve got to be brave,
you’ve got to be strong.” But as Zig Ziglar once said, “that’s not the time to
be brave. That’s not the time to be strong. You need to be human.”
Welcome, fellow humans. We are here, weary though we may be, to
celebrate. But what we celebrate is not the superficial “holiday mood.” We are
here to celebrate, as we are able, that our God sent Christ into the world to
fully embrace all of our very human places, to embody compassion and hope, assuring
us that we are not alone.
It can be so easy to feel alone, or as Scripture would
say, “To be in a wilderness place.” In my experience, such times have felt like
a rock scramble to the summit. Or a slog through shifting sands. Grief and loss
have valleys so deep that they don’t feel like a break from the climb, they
feel like plummeting beyond control. Sadness knows chasms where the sun can
barely shine through. We were once hiking in a slot canyon for hours starting
at dawn, in a chasm so tight that the sun was shining, but the light didn’t
make it down to us. As we came around a bend, suddenly the sun hits us. For
everyone coming from the other direction they’ve seen that light for hours, but
for us, for a long time, we could barely detect it in the midst of so much
obscurity. We had to count on the map to believe what was ahead.
But if you noticed in Isaiah we
hear, the path will be made straight and level and there will be no
more hills to climb, or valleys to crawl out of, and no more rough patches, or
obstacles. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed. Sort of like coming
around the bend into the sunlight, we hoped at some point we would.
But even so, the journey from shadows and rocks into the
plain path was far more gradual than we anticipated. In life outside of hiking,
even more so because we really don’t have a map, do we?
Isaiah’s words were not a definitive roadmap, but a prophecy
about the end of a literal exile. We know that our life’s struggles sure can
feel like exile, where we have been cast into an unknown and unsought place, or
at least into a place we have a really hard time seeing our Lord.
Like ten years ago when I was bringing my husband home
from quintuple bypass surgery. Everything about our new post-surgery life felt
like a foreign wilderness with a sketchy map. We hoped that we were on the path
to a better day, but in those days….I will spare you the post-surgery details….obstacles
abounded. Unlikely promise entered our weariness when our neighbor, Lisbeth,
knocked on the front door. With a mix of compassion and mirth, she told me
“Soon you’ll see Jesus!” And off she went. I was mystified and in the depths of
caregiver fatigue and paperwork. I guess she knew and God sure did, in the most
extraordinary way, that even a pastor needed to see Jesus. Awhile later, she’s
coming down the street calling out, “later today, you’ll see Jesus. That’s all
you need to know!”
She wouldn’t tell me when. In a day filled with schedules
for 13 medications and being unable to leave my husband unattended, I found
myself trapped, but also feeling this space created by wondering about this
visiting Jesus. It was oddly comforting and even hopeful, this strange promise
from my non-churchgoing neighbor. I looked out the window periodically,
especially when I saw her Jeep drive by. Since she had a lot of rental
properties, that was a lot. As evening set in and the days obstacles with
pharmacies and doctors and the visiting nurse were taking their toll, I was
flagging in energy and hope. But, sure enough shortly after my 5 pm sigh, I
heard a shuffling sound on the front porch and the doorbell rang. Coming
downstairs, I saw a shadow through the glass of the door and when I opened it,
by golly, she was right. I got to see Jesus!
Now, it wasn’t in clouds and great glory the way one
might imagine. Staring at me was an inflatable Jesus, and a six pack from a
local microbrew store. Lisbeth waved from her porch down the street, mission
accomplished, while worrying it was disrespectful.
I can assure you that the love that moved her to show
Jesus to the pastor/neighbor who had become the very human overwhelmed
caregiver, that love was as faithful as any I know. It was the smallest but
bright glimmer that life for us in our quirky neighborhood would indeed go on.
Lisbeth had grown up Lutheran, but her partner Deb was
Jewish and their relationship was problematic for some. I could tell that this
was a loss that she wrestled with. I ended up becoming her pastor of
sorts, helping her to see that God did not intend wilderness for her either. “The
Lord will be revealed and all people will see it together.”
After that day, there were still many miles to travel on
the highways of our lives, no two ways about it. But I always look back with
fondness and awe at what God did in our midst because God wanted those who were
in the wilderness to have obstacles removed so they could see, even if for the
day. Neither Michael’s health nor her family dynamics would resolve overnight.
But there is also a second meaning to this way prepared
in Isaiah. In Isaiah’s day, when someone who was favored was coming through,
people would literally clear the path of all the obstacles to create a smooth
ride for a chariot. Before modern earth-moving equipment it was a colossal task
that no one would do for ordinary folk like you and me. But that is the second
joy in this passage. The words are not spoken for others who are not you and I.
God is intentional here. No one is too insignificant, no situation beyond hope.
Remember- all people shall see.
When we are weary, it can seem like no matter how many
people say, “Let me know if you need something” you wonder why no one can see
how it is. It can feel like being the lone voice crying in the wilderness. And
it is here in these very spaces, and here tonight right now, that God says, “Comfort,
comfort, O my people, I am here. And I will do whatever it takes to help you
see. To see enough for the next day, the next decision, the next step. Because
I love you.” Isaiah’s words came to foretell the birth of Christ, whom God sent
because God so loves us. The journey is not done, and we await his return, but
in the in-between, where we are, Jesus is still showing up in all kinds of ways
to bring comfort and the promise of hope. And we don’t have to be strong, or
brave, we just have to be human, exactly the way God made us. May it be so for
you, beloveds.
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All rights reserved. May
not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
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