Emmanuel

A melody in the night that I can’t recognize. Struggling to remember the words. Finally, several REM cycles later, I remember the lyrics to the single line of melody. “You’re the light unto my path.”

When I wake up, the whole song comes back. “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path . . . You’re the light unto my path.”

But I disagree at first. “Remember the journal I threw in the trash when all the Bible promises evaporated and the doctor said Rob had one day left to live? Those were promises from Your Word.”

“That’s not My Word.”

I stop. That’s right. Jesus is the Word. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” Jesus is the light unto my path. “When I feel afraid, think I’ve lost my way, Still, you’re here right beside me, Nothing will I fear as long as you are here, You’ll be with me to the end.”

I had put my hope in the words I read, instead of in Your Word—Your Son.

I see.

Supernatural comfort and communication keep showing up. For me, it usually happens in the night. For my daughter, in the daytime, as hawks circle her home, her neighborhood walk, her drives across this desert. Rob could always spot hawks on the wing. He seemed to love them. She’s been seeing hawks ever since her father went into ICU in January.

“What do you think it means?” I ask her.

“I think it means ‘hope,’” she tells me. I nod. “We need hope, don’t we?” Our eyes both fill with tears. “We need it desperately.”

For my son, comfort arrives late one afternoon as he drops onto the front pew of the church where he is the pastor. Lighting a candle on the wall, he sits with his head in his hands, eyes closed in grief, and bravely voices the question we’ve all been asking silently.

“When are You going to show up???”

It lands on the floor at his feet. No celestial voices reply. There is only light. Burning. Its brightness hurts his eyes though they are closed in the darkened room.

His grieving interrupted by the burning sensation, he squints to see what is causing his pain. From the tiny window above the lit taper on the wall beside him, a late afternoon shaft of sunlight strikes the Gospel candle on the altar in front of him. The rays reflect against the brass ring at its top, sending a ricochet of light directly into Father Lee’s eyes.

A flame appears, unburning, Moses-style, on top of the unlit candle. Not on the Epistle candle on the south end of the table, but on the Gospel candle on the north end. This taper represents Emmanuel—God With Us. At the very moment Lee demands to know when God is going to show up for him, for his sister, for me, his mother, and for the rest of Rob’s family who are suffering from his death, the answer hits my son right between the eyes.

God With Us. He is here. Right now. In our suffering. Weeping with us, one arm around us, one arm around Rob.

Hope flies generously on the wing. Audaciously. Above us, everywhere we go.

In the dark hours of our grief, Jesus is the light for our unfamiliar path.

And in each of these reminders is a common thread of truth. Emmanuel—God With Us—is. He is With Us.

We are not alone.