Hebrews 1: 1-12 (links validated 12/05/24a)

always good insights!

Frederick Streets, a pastor in Connecticut and former chaplain at Yale University, wrote a poem that describes the hope that we feel for this coming year. It appeared in the Yale Divinity School Journal, Reflections, the recent theme of which was also hope. Let these words sink in. He writes: We will laugh again, without caution. We will smile again, without constraint. We will embrace again, without defense. We will speak again, without muted sounds. We will, again, side by side, look at the stars. Again, we will gather in places and spaces unsoiled by our anxiety and fear. We will freely breathe deeply, again. We will dance again with our cheeks close enough to hear our whispering to one another. We will mourn again, openly. We will greet each other again closely, without suspicion. Children will hug us again. And we will hug children, again We will invite solitude, again. We will imagine again without desperation. We will again feel the joy that hope brings. We will play together again. We will sing together again. We will cheer together again. We will pray together again. We will feel each other’s hands and arms, Again, tomorrow. Tomorrow, again...

This opening reading from Hebrews reminded me of that recurring scene from my favorite childhood TV program, “The Lone Ranger.” After my hero performed another act of derring-do, he would gallop off toward the horizon, and someone would call out, “Who was that masked man?” That reminded me of that famous scene from that wonderful movie, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” After successfully robbing multiple banks, Butch and Sundance are fleeing into the wilderness, doggedly pursued not by some ragtag posse from the nearest town, but by an obviously professional posse wearing white hats. After their most ingenious but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to evade the white hats, Butch and Sundance turn to each other with the same question. “Who are those guys?”

9/11 arrives this year on a Sunday, as it turns out. I like to start planning some months ahead for worship, and running across that fact reminded me of a story I heard at the time of that disaster about a fire fighter named Vinnie, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.[8] Those whose lives are touched by senseless tragedy know all too well the feelings that Vinnie’s family knew. Vinnie’s father delivered a eulogy at his church in Queens at a service with no body present, and as he went on he discovered he was unable to stop. Apparently he was searching his own words for a final explanation, a way out of the crushing feeling that nothing makes sense, and he could not stop speaking, because to stop would be finally to admit that Vinnie was gone, disappeared from the face of the earth with little evidence that he ever existed. When our lives are visited by tragedy, we know the feeling. Two months after that memorial service, Vinnie’s remains were found. And everything at the World Trade Center site went silent. Hats came off, and a reverent cessation of activity overcame the grounds as Vinnie was carried out. The next worship service at his church a few days later, on Good Friday, was filled to overflowing, and when the congregation sang a hymn with the words, “Lord, let at last thine angels come,” everyone knew that in these latter days the Lord had spoken to them. And while the angels might have been summoned to carry their beloved brother in Christ to heaven, suspended above the experience of the world we now know, here on earth we live within the community of the very body of Christ as we gather this day to say: Hallelujah! The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!

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based on Hebrews 1:13