Broken Clothespins--Broken Dreams

Behold, I make all things new! (Rev. 21:5)

 

If anyone be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation; the old has gone; the new has come! (2 Cor. 5:17)

 

*********************************

 

As a five-year old child, I believed my daddy could fix anything.  As I have written before, one day I was playing in our back yard, and my dad was working in the laundry shed behind the house.  Our next-door neighbor was hanging sheets on the line when a clothespin broke.  "Give it to me," I said, "my daddy can fix anything."  Smiling, she handed the clothespin over the fence.  I took it to my daddy and continued playing without concern.  I had no doubt that he would return it "fixed."  And sure enough, within a few minutes, he brought me a brand-new clothespin, which I proudly handed to our neighbor. 

 

All of us have experienced broken lives, broken dreams, a broken world.  And all of us have probably experienced our own plans to repair the damage or to start anew:  we'll make better choices; we'll get out of debt; we'll save money.  We'll work hard to earn promotions at work; we'll go on a diet and take better care of our health.  All of our expectations are based on the nagging fear that we are on our own in the mission of improving our lives.  We recognize that we need a plan, a new beginning, a new relationship, and we resolve to begin again.

 

In the midst of our plans, or in the midst of our disappointments in ourselves, every life is graced by sacred moments of visitation by the Divine Presence.  Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they did not recognize the moment of their graced visitation --- they were too busy with their own plans to save themselves, even while their Source of Grace dwelt among them.  The One Who makes all things new again was with them, but they could not see Him.  In fact, they were disappointed in Him, for He did not look at all like what they were expecting.

 

Our expectations of "heaven" or of "salvation" often take the form of sitting at a dinner table with people we love, when the air is filled with laughter and deep, radiant joy.  These moments give us a glimpse of the heavenly banquet in our father's house -- but the moments are ephemeral and cannot be sustained beyond the activity which produces them.  The joy Jesus promised us is that "which the world cannot give."  And the joy He gives continues to exist even when our dreams are shattered, when we are overwhelmed by the disappointments of life and the interruptions of our "heavenly banquets."

 

I just received an e-mail from a good friend whose granddaughter died yesterday from leukemia.  For over a year, we have been praying for Katie, hoping for a healing.  The e-mail my friend sent reads as follows:  God has answered our prayers, but not in the way we hoped -- Katie died this morning.  Please pray for my daughter and her family.  My friend knows the One Who makes all things new again, and she knows that Katie is not dead but alive beyond all our dreams of healing.  And Katie herself knew the Lord Who makes all things new again.  Her blog written throughout her illness is filled with hope, joy, and love.  I will have to get the address once again, as I lost track of it along the way. 

 

The broken dreams of our lives are invitations to a new life, because we have a Savior who came back from the dead, and Who offers us participation in His new, resurrected Body that can no longer be conquered by sin, suffering, death, or alienation.  By His power, He holds all things together -- even our broken world!

 

No matter how great our plans to repair and restore our dreams, we can never quench our spiritual thirst.  When we can finally recognize our limitation, our hunger for more than we can give ourselves, we are ready to receive the "living water" that flows from heaven, the Spirit that Jesus promised to all who come to Him.  Throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, the image of a river is used as a metaphor for the blessings that God wants to give us.  The book of Psalms begins with a promise that those who delight in the law of the Lord will be "like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither."  Isaiah refers to "streams in the desert."  All the biblical references constantly make two claims:  The first is that we need the water from this river to become spiritually alive.  The second is that this water can be given to us only by God, because the river flows from out of His heart into our world.  In light of these claims, it makes sense that John plainly states that the river of living water is actually the Holy Spirit.  Apart from the Spirit which Jesus gives, our souls wither and our dreams dry up, for they are based on "empty cisterns that we have dug for ourselves," in the words of Isaiah. 

 

We tend to think that we don't need prayer --- there is so much work to be done, so why can't we just get to it?  Certainly, after the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus, the world was filled with broken hearts, broken dreams, and broken lives.  The Apostles had an overwhelming task to perform, much as anyone does who looks around our world today.  But Jesus told them not to begin, but to return to Jerusalem and to await the "Gift of the Father," the promised Holy Spirit.  For nine days, the disciples gathered in the upper room with Mary, not only because that's what they were told to do, but also because they had no idea of what to do or how to do it on their own.  When the Holy Spirit came, they were filled with power from on high.  At last, the rivers of living waters began to flow through them as they had flowed through Jesus -- at last, broken dreams could be made new again through the living Christ who remained with them and in them.  The Father had handed them brand-new clothespins which could be passed across the fence to their neighbors!