The Last Thing You Hear

I lived with my grandparents for a few of the early years of my childhood. They were church goers and they put me in the car and brought me along and ushered me off to Sunday School. I have a dim memory of wearing a clip-on tie.

In general, Sunday School did not go well. I was frequently bored. I was more often confused. The teacher assumed that everyone in her charge knew a bunch of things--the story of Adam and Eve, the tale of Noah's ark, the battle between David and Goliath, the importance of the crucifixion. I knew none of them.

My efforts to understand were halting and usually unsuccessful. Take, for example, the "last seven words of Christ," which we were to learn in preparation for Good Friday and Easter. No matter how I cut it, I couldn't get to seven words. It was always a lot more. It was a long time before I learned that the "words" are actually phrases.

As part of that lesson, the teacher kept telling us that the final words anyone says are very important. I didn't get that, either. The final words I had heard up to that point were "goodbye," "take care," and "see you later alligator." None of these seemed profound. It seemed to me that all of the important stuff came before those final words.

Of course, I'm older and better informed now. I've read the Bible carefully. I've darkened the doors of a couple seminaries. I've had the chance to study under some of the most distinguished theologians of our time; perhaps, by now, they have successfully repressed any memory of me.

And, yet, I have the sneaking suspicion that, at age seven, I was on to something. Of course the final words of Jesus are important. But maybe, for many of the people following him, the most important things came before.

Take, for example, the phrase that we find at the end of the eleventh chapter of the gospel of Matthew.

I wonder how many people have come to that phrase and stopped because it was exactly what they needed to hear. It was the only thing they needed to hear.

They came to that phrase out of illness or stress or despair. They came to it out of weakness or depression or loneliness. They came to it out of hunger or fear or even the simple day-to-day apprehension that accompanies the cold acknowledgment of our own limitations and mortality.

They found it and it stayed with them. It stayed with them because it offers no false promises that things will go well. It offers no phony assurances that we will get through this life unscathed. It offers no gleeful predictions that misfortune--the sort of misfortune that spends us down to just about nothing--will not come knocking at our door.

To the contrary, it assumes that life will beat us up and wear us out.

And then it says this:

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

Amen.

And amen.

Scripture: Matthew 11: 28