13th Sunday: The death of a child and trust in God

Why does the death of a child affect us so deeply? I met a family when I was in Yuma, their children attended Immaculate Conception school. Their daughters, Rachel and Rebecca, were in kindergarten through third grade when I was there. I went to dinner at their home and would see them at mass and would kid with the girls at school. Becky, the oldest, had a crush on Cody and they were the talk of the third grade. After I was moved to Tucson in 2003, Msgr. Richard O’Keeffe, the pastor called me to go with him and visit the youngest daughter, Rachel, who was at the UMC children’s cancer center. She had leukemia. We took her ice cream, prayed with them and talked to Rachel and her mom. I would wake up in the middle of the night and would pray for that family. After a long struggle, Rachel died and was buried in Yuma. (1995-2008) Even after that, something would remind me of that family and I would pray for them, sometimes in the middle of the night. I have visited hundreds of dying parishioners and buried many others. Why did the death of Rachel, a child, stick with me so? You know why.
 
God and Death: Jesus and the little girl
The first reading from the Book of Wisdom said that “God did not make death,
nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.” Wis. 1:13. Jesus is drawn to death by the pleading of her father. "My daughter is at the point of death.
Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.” Mk 5. Jesus arrived by the side of the dead girl and said, "Why this commotion and weeping?
The child is not dead but asleep[1]."
Mk. 5. Think about how Jairus’ friends received Jesus. When Jesus approached the little girl, they ridiculed him. Clearly they believed that Jesus did not have the power too free her from death. So, perturbed, he put them out. A similar story is told in John’s Gospel. In the Gospel of John, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. In that story, Mary, his friend, said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” John 11:32. Remember, she was the one who sat at his feet and listened to him choosing the “better part.” Lk. 10:42. When Mary, whom he loved, expressed her grief that Jesus had not prevented her brother’s death, he became “perturbed and deeply troubled.” John 11:33 When it comes to death, our trust in God is pushed to the edge. Why? Because we have our own story that is not necessarily God’s story.
 
Our Bucket List: Our story, not God's story
Why does the death of a child disturb us? Because the death of a child, someone we love who is so young, deeply threatens our sense that life makes sense. We want our life to be understandable. Suffering and death threatens our autonomy, the idea that, if I do things right, I can be in control. We see our lives as a time span, a chronological flow of events. If we can get everything we want done, then we had a good life.  For us, life can be reduced to ‘I was born, went to school, married and raised a family, enjoyed my grandchildren and then died when I was ready.’ Yes, that is a desirable life, but a good life is lived in the presence of God. Mostly, life is an unfinished symphony.
 
The death of a child reveals a belief, lurking just under the surface, that medicine and science, thus human beings, have become God. Life is good when it happens on my terms. God owes me that. In this mindset where the human person is the center of the story, suffering is pointless because it interferes with the story that we tell ourselves; what our life or the life of a child was supposed to be. Whether our life is a span of days or decades, however, ultimately we are part of a bigger story within which none of us is the central character. We are creatures of a gracious God and we don’t make our own life up.
 
God’s story that we are invited to join
Think of the story of Jesus’ life like this. Christ is the Son of God always knowing the perfect love of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Because he is from the Father and faithful to him he becomes Incarnate, a human being. He is love and has only known love. At his birth, Jesus encounters the world of sin, betrayal, physical suffering, oppression, rejection and every conceivable degradation of the image of Divine Love in the human person. His human life is not what it is supposed to be. His life as a human person was not supposed to be like this because, supposedly, God’s people loved him. The trouble is, they didn’t love him.  In the Garden, he, like us, offers to God the difference between how he wanted his life to be and how his life really is. That is the essence of all real suffering.
 
God is the person who brought us into being and calls us from death to life. The story we understand about ourselves finds its meaning in the story that God tells us about ourselves. Our narrative links our birth to our life and to our death all in God’s presence. We see our lives not as just a time span where one thing after another happens; some things good and some things bad. Instead, our life, is a narrative that makes sense and has purpose only in relationship to the God that redeems us. We do not choose or even desire everything that happens to us. All the stories we tell ourselves about our life fail unless we see them as part of a larger story told by God.
 
Whether our life is a span of days or decades ultimately we are part of a bigger story within which none of us is the central character. We are creatures of a gracious God. Why does the death of a child hurt so much? Because we, like God, love them so much and love suffers. We are not afraid when a child goes to sleep, safe in their bed. Jesus treated that little girl’s death like she was taking a nap. When she woke up, she would be in her father’s house. That is our faith, even in the midst of our fears.