I was pleased with this image, used yesterday in a funeral for Jack Covington, a long-time member of our church. I was reflecting on Matthew 11:25...this piece came well into the meditation:
I am thinking again about the text in Matthew—and maybe what first drew me to Jesus words was the part about “heavy-laden.” I have come late to this party, of course, your life in Shelby and Cleveland County and Lafayette Street. There are still so many things I have to learn. And by the time I arrived Jack was already gearing-down, as it were, idling a little on account of his eyesight.
I saw him and Frances at church, mostly, and how faithful they were. Frances told me just this past Saturday, “Now I won’t be there tomorrow, because I would cry all the way through it, but I will be there next Sunday.”
Anyway, Sunday by Sunday I would take Jack’s hand as he offered it—he was not able to find my hand, blind as he had gotten, but he extended his toward the sound of my voice. I could see his hand, of course, and so I would take it, and shake it, kind of cradle it, and chat for a moment or two.
You could find worse images, I think, for our posture before God—all of us extending our hands, perhaps feebly, unable to see who, or where, exactly, we are reaching, just offering our hands toward his Voice; but God can see us, better than we can see him, and he takes our hands and draws us unto himself, near to his heart and at the Last, into his home.
