I will send her to you

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121416.cfm
IS 45:6C-8, 18, 21C-25
LK 7:18B-23

A dear friend asked me the other day if I still believed that prayer worked. I did not have to answer. She continued the conversation without me, providing all the reasons for her worry that it might not work, since things work out themselves, as she had concluded. That conclusion, though, lacked the results she most often desired. 

The question came in my direction for a reason. Her son and his wife have an expectant son labeled with an imperfectly diagnosed brain malady. My friend has experienced a higher rate than usual litany of family trauma, which has led her to believe that God thinks little of her prayers. Her angst at her grandchild’s outcome teetered ominously toward an expectant sorrow, balanced too lightly by hoped for joy. 

Her question to me went really to her late husband, a man who most certainly sits in heaven waiting for her. He has not been here physically for quite some time. He adds weight to the joy side of the scale through an unseen, though eager, Holy Spirit. I could feel Vernon, as I’ll call him, urging God to comfort her. Prayer working, is not really her question. It is a deeper calamity that we all encounter.

I did not project well enough the joy she required, I am afraid. The cloud of sadness in her little house only surrounded Sierra, as I’ll call her, but it had a mighty grip. I wrote today’s reflection about her, from the eyes and heart of Vernon, as I manufactured a scene of he and Jesus chatting in heaven.

Jesus walked outside the gate of heaven to speak with the man who sat upon one of the many stone railings scattered around the edge of heaven, a space of more than a mile. Four hundred yards from the glassy, holy entry way to eternity in the light sat Vernon. Out of the dark below, and from the fog at the beginning of the valley several miles away, the people came. Every day for more than 12 years, Jesus followed the same path to talk with Vernon, who regularly ventured to wait for his wife, Sierra. Vernon watched the crowds of new saints. He would be told when his wife would arrive, and where he sat is where she would walk by, but he still came every day anyway. Many waited for their beloved in the very same way.

Most of the arrivals slowly wound their way through the hundreds of yards of railings toward the gate with their mouths wide open, touching the warm silky stones as they passed the “Avails” as the waiting saints were called. (Those who made themselves available.) The patient newcomers came in an assortment of approaches, as migrants, immigrants, refugees, and transients. Most of them took in the majestic valley entrance way with unhurried happiness, accepting their new adornment as saints with varying degrees of speed. A few excited arrivals ran to the gate, others skipped, jumping as they went. Some were huggers. Many sang. 

Vernon sat, looking at them all, greeting so many exuberant and hope filled people as they got closer to the entry gates. He watched the relatives and friends greet their anticipated loved ones. Their shouting and glee absorbed into the rich, sweet, full air, like background vocals in a symphony of holy song. Vernon yearned for the moment when Sierra would join him.

This day that Jesus sat next to Vernon, instead of talking about music, woodworking, or telling the stories of the many people who had built the massive stretch of sitting walls around the entrance to heaven, for Vernon had been a very good mason in his own right, and in fact had built the very spot where he sat every day, Jesus asked Vernon to talk about his wife, and what he would want Jesus to know about her.

In every moment when Jesus would arrive, Vernon felt enveloped. Jesus’ arm would lean against his, and the voices around them would quiet enough for just the two of them to hear, almost invisible to everyone else. Jesus’ question this time silenced everything.

"What will Sierra say to me when she arrives, Vernon? What do you think will be on her mind?"

“She will be so relieved to meet you,” Vernon said quickly. He frowned, thinking that was a strange way to put it. "That came out wrong. I mean ... ,” he corrected himself. “She will be relieved in a finished way; that she won’t have to push away the doubts and the confusion over the pains and struggles of life.” He looked directly into Jesus’ eyes. “She will have lots of questions, too.”

Jesus nodded. “That sounds very much like her.”

“What will you tell her?” Vernon asked. He knew that Jesus would meet with her before he did. Sometimes a long period passed before folks made the trek across the valley. He would be told when Sierra’s journey from the foggy horizon through the valley would begin.

Vernon reflected as Jesus waited to answer. Some time ago, Vernon walked back into to the fog. He hiked around in it for a long while, but the experience was not as uplifting as when he first arrived there, coming out of the darkness. The place held a faint familiarity to living within the rancor and confusion of the fallen world. He remembered walking aimlessly through the fog when he first arrived. After quickly moving out of the darkness the fog felt safe. A long time passed as Vernon felt comforted by the wispy wet air. The silence and wave of cloudy atmosphere might have frightened some, but Vernon enjoyed its peace and quiet. Eventually, someone guided walked by him, and took him by the hand. A whisper in his ear told him not be be afraid. Vernon was no afraid. Then, as the fog cleared he saw the guide was Jesus himself. The whispers of the Holy Spirit, which he recognized, then confirmed what he wanted to be true.

“I will tell her what I told Isaiah,” Jesus finally said.

Vernon found Jesus holding his hand again just now, and thought a bit about the Hebrew prophet. “She’s familiar with Isaiah. That might be a long conversation, Jesus. You had a lot to say to Isaiah.”  Jesus laughed loudly, jostling him where they sat.

The unbridled emotions of Jesus startled Vernon. He had become very familiar with the man, struck constantly at his brotherly relationship with God himself. Jesus' laughter still surprised and delighted Vernon. 

"I talked with Isaiah once," Vernon said. "He had lots to say.” Jesus chuckled at that. The ancient prophet often wandered out where the Avails took up their prayerful, pondering, and greeting positions. 

“Isaiah likes you,” Jesus said. That’s another thing that you get used to, and even learn to love, Vernon thought. Jesus knows everything that’s going on, and in heaven the recognition of that is the cause of much celebration. Jesus then stood up and turned to Vernon. With outstretched arms he proclaimed loudly:

“I am the LORD, there is no other;
I form the light, and create the darkness,
I make well-being and create woe;
I, the LORD, do all these things.”

“That’s the verses that you were thinking, weren’t you?” Jesus asked Vernon, looking down at he. He sat back down. Vernon nodded, knowing Jesus could tell what he thought. “Your lovely Sierra knows what is so obviously true, Vernon. So, that’s not what I’m going to say to her. I’m going in another direction.” 

Vernon looked over at Jesus, wondering. Jesus heard the wonder in his thoughts.

“Vernon, you have heard her chagrin over the darkness and the woe of the world, and heard her sighs and even chippy observations about how I allowed all those awful things to take place." It was not a question. Vernon nodded. "Don’t imagine, though, that she needs confirmation about who I am and what I do.”

Vernon thought about that for a moment. 

“You are stuck on another point, too, Vernon. She doesn’t need me to say, ‘There is no just and saving God but me.’ Not up here, certainly. She’s been getting that message loud and clear down there all her life. She has another need.”

Vernon looked at Jesus with a bit of a frown. “Trust me on this,” Jesus assured Vernon. “My allowance of evil for some people differently than others is mostly your problem, as it is with many. It’s not an issue for Sierra, no matter what you heard her say.”

In all these conversations Vernon had never heard that admonition. He bent forward and cocked his head, struggling to factor his personal issue with evil. Jesus was right. Vernon looked outward, his eyes darting back and forth. Then, he sat up straight.

“Yes, that’s correct, Vernon. This is your verse.” Jesus said, placing his hand on Vernon’s back. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

"Sierra know this is so. Her problem is not what is going on. Her problem is me. Everyone must deal with forgiveness. Hers is with me.” 

Vernon then ran through a familiar refrain he had with Sierra. “You think he’ll forgive me?” Sierra said to him many times, referring to her unhappiness with God. 

“He already has,” Vernon would respond.

“I’m not so sure,” she would say. “I will need to forgive him first.”

Jesus stood up again, and took Vernon’s arm lifting him up. He placed his hands on Vernon’s shoulders and said, “Before him in shame shall come all who vent their anger against him. In the Lord shall be the vindication and the glory of all the descendants of Israel,” Jesus said, quoting Isaiah 45:25.

Vernon thought how scared Sierra would be to hear those words come out of Jesus’ mouth. He squinted at him, unsure of the wisdom of such a statement. She would cower before him.

“No, she won’t, Vernon. She will know me again, as she did when she was just a child. I will heal her, and repair everything. Her anger at me will be gone. Her guilt will melt away, because she will remember those words of yours, Vernon. She will hear them again, from me,” Jesus explained. 

“I already have forgiven her. She will quickly forgive me, and reach for me. I will hold her close."

Jesus looked out at the incoming people. "I am doing that now, with all of these," he said.

Vernon saw tears in Jesus' eyes. They dripped by his wide smile. Jesus did not restrain either his joy or his relief over love's power. He then turned his head to Vernon.

"Then, I will send her to you.”