Boston On This Side Of Eden

I’m not a runner.  116 times people have lined up and ran 26.2 miles for anywhere from two to six hours to a finish line somewhere in Boston and I haven’t cared.  The 117^th running interested me and my wife.  We know a young gal who ran in the elite women’s division.  Her early morning prestart facebook post: 

“Take my feet and let them be

Swift and beautiful for Thee.

Game on time.  :-)”

We tuned in via live internet stream hoping to catch a glimpse of her running.  Never did.  But we watched until the athlete tracker on the BAA website indicated she’d finished, somewhere around 9:15am Pacific Time.  She ran the thing in 2:47:38.  She was the 34^th fastest woman in the whole race; the 18^th fastest American woman.  Perhaps she would have liked to run a bit faster; finish a bit higher.  I suppose, unless you’re first, you always hope to have done more.  But we were pretty amped for her none-the-less.  My wife headed off to help in the kids’ classrooms at school.  I clicked offline and went about my day, disconnected from any global newsflashes. 

By 2:30pm my wife had arrived home.  I was taking it easy on the sofa with a Eugene Peterson book on Pastoral Ministry.  She gestured toward the computer, “What is going on in Boston…at the Marathon?”  Her tone seemed a bit panicked.  We’d already talked earlier about the finishers and the gal we know.  I didn’t have an answer for her, though her question proved rhetorical as she proceeded to tell me about the bomb blasts near the finish line. 

She jumped online to dig around.  Facebook turned up its usual splattering of sympathy, outrage, and shared memorial photos.  Google linked to some news pages.  Early reports suggested terrorism.  Well sure, why not.  That would certainly generate the highest volume of fear among the American people.  That would light off the old American pride, foster lots of blogospheric speculation, and ultimately spur on a certain dose of hate…good hate of course; defensive hate, the kind that retaliates eye-for-an-eye.  Poppycock.  For once can we just wait and see what the hard evidence turns up?

It took me the whole day, but I finally decided to go online and catch up on what had happened.  I read a couple articles.  Both said pretty much the same thing.  Three were dead.  More than a hundred seriously injured.  Lots of lost limbs. 

I began scrolling through pictures from the event.  I made it to picture 17 of 68.  Three people on the sidewalk.  One, a man, lying on his back with one leg bloody and being held in the air by another man; a young man, who was looking anxiously around for help while using his shirt as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.  The third person, an older lady, standing helplessly by with blood on her hand and soaked into her jeans.  In the background, a giant peanut M&M, broken glass, and blood stained concrete.  I couldn’t go on.  I felt voyeuristic, gawking at the horror as though there was nothing better on the internet to view.  I imagined being there and thought about how utterly disgusted these three people would be if I merely stood by staring at the scene.  I clicked offline.

That evening, laying in bed, imagining the scene under the cover of night – still blood stained and shattered, probably lit by fueled halogen lights while investigators combed the pebbled pavement for evidence – a thought came to mind:  None of this would have happened in Eden. 

But that hardly matters now. 

Here, outside the garden of Eden on this side of the guardian Cherubim (Genesis 3:24); on this side of the flickering flaming sword turning every which way to stave off those who would try to eat from the tree of life without merit, here…now, with pictures and speculations and news of indictments and manhunts all posting at breakneck speeds – watch it live even – we can hardly imagine life without death.  We know too much.  We know good and evil (Gen. 3:22).  We can hardly imagine a day without a bomb blast somewhere in the world.  We just like to imagine them somewhere else than here.

Tuesday morning I landed in Isaiah 24 for some devotion time.  Time was short.  My neighbor was picking me up to play basketball.  I skimmed the text for some drops of grace that might splatter the lingering scenes in my mind with some sense.  Verse 1 reads:

“Behold, the LORD will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist the surface and scatter its inhabitants.”

Ugh, that didn’t help.  I skimmed on.

“The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and withers; the highest people of the earth languish.” (vs. 4)

“The wasted city is broken down; every house is shut up so that none can enter.” (vs. 10)

“Desolation is left in the city; the gates are battered into ruins.” (vs. 11)

“Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth!” (vs. 17)

My thoughts tumbled like shoes in a dryer; clunking and tossing and rapping against each other.  SHEESH!  It feels like I’m reading the morning headlines here.  The words of Isaiah 24 portray a yet future day of the LORD, though they felt awfully contemporary to me. 

Then my neighbor pulled up.  He had ESPN radio on.  It was hot with questions and confusion.  Isaiah 24 only proved to add fuel to the fire in some respects.  Tuesday proved to be a heavy day, for him and me.

Wednesday morning I landed in Isaiah 25 for some devotion time.  Time was longer so I read slower.  Verse 1 reads:

“O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.”

Wait, wait, wait…  I thought.  I gotta read that again.  I did.  There’s a drop of grace!  Then I read on.

“For you have been a stronghold t the poor…to the needy in distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat…” (vs. 4)

“And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.” (vs. 7)

“He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces…” (vs. 8)

Wipe away tears…where have I read that before?  I flopped the pages of my Bible over to Revelation 21.  There it is!  All the way at the end of the story, the day after the Day of the LORD, if you will, handkerchiefs are wetted with the tears of those who have persevered in Christ Jesus through the sting of life and death on this side of Eden.  The darkened covering cast over us all; this death as we know it and have seen it in all its explosive spray and bloodied gore and panicked breath and armored pursuit, is eliminated in the single mighty gulp of God (vs. 4).  There will be no more mourning or crying or pain because those things belong to former days; days like Monday, April 15, 2013.  No, this day, this far off day of hope, will be one altogether opposite of that day. 

I know the challenge of imagining such a far off hope when the shrapnel of tragedy is still embedded in our minds.  (Staring at pictures doesn’t help this, by the way.)  But maybe hope isn’t as far off as we imagine.  Maybe it’s foreshadowed by stories of heroes and champions and humble servants at the scene.  Maybe there’s an echo of the yet future day in the story of Carlos Arredondo (the guy in the cowboy hat who helped save a double amputee) or Brent Cunningham (the guy who hung his finisher medal around the neck of the young lady who missed the finish line by half a mile) or Joe Andruzzi (the NFL star and cancer survivor who carried a wounded woman to safety).  Or, perhaps greater still, there is an echo of hope in the story of Jesus Christ (the Savior and Redeemer who died on the cross so we might live).    

Indeed, echos of hope are not so far off.  But somewhere on that far off day hope will be fulfilled.  The guardian Cherubim will extinguish the flaming sword and step to the side and the boundary between this side of Eden and that side of Eden will fade away.  And again, those who have persevered in Christ Jesus will eat from the tree of life upon merit found only in the Lord Jesus himself.

“Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20)