THE TWO SIDES OF BEING FACE DOWN FIJ

 

FAITH IN JASPER Article

THE TWO SIDES OF BEING FACE DOWN


“There are many ways to hit the ground/ not many answers to be found/

we’re faced with mysteries profound/ but this is one of the best ones.”

I quote Bruce Cockburn. From memory. The significance of this is that I recently was hospitalized for a concussion and I don’t remember hardly any of it. Selective amnesia? I don’t know, but there are 2 hours of my life that I have absolutely no memory of, despite being conscious.

 

We hit the ground, my son and I, launched over the handlebars of my bike, face down on Bonhomme. (I have no recollection.) My son was howling, nose bleeding, needing attention. (I have no recollection.) Some people came running, an ambulance arrived, questions were asked, my cheek and hands were torn. (I have no recollection.) We were driven to Seton, my son on a backboard, x-rays ensued, a dozen times I ask “Noah, what happened?” (I have no recollection.) Eventually my wife comes, I begin to see her face, I have a picture also of my little boy in my mind, scraped nose, looking brave, new stuffed-toy in his arms from our neighbour/nurse. They go and I stay. Still not out of the Land of Stunned, piecing together the information from an emergency room bed. I begin to understand, but I can’t touch it. I trust in the story conveyed to me, the reasonable details, but it seems outside of me. A week later and I still cannot grasp the experience with my fingers, only by faith. It is a mystery. My injury is like an insulated ski mitt between the prickly event and the fingertips of my mind, yearning to feel it, longing to connect.

              

Two days after, I’m up in the pulpit, Thanksgiving Sunday and, brother, I’m thankful! The day is bright. The people are festive. There’s a Spirit in the air and a thought occurs to me. A thought about my accident, about my amnesia. It occurs to me that I’m not alone in this. No, this injury thing is big, it covers a lot of ground. I mean, as I read God’s Word, I get the sense that God views us all as having hit the ground, face down, licking the road like a bighorn sheep and too dazed to do anything about it. And, yet, in Jesus, we’ve all been picked up, had our wounds cleaned and been set on our feet again. But we walk around without any memory of it!

 

So this is my task, as a minister, as a Christian: to remind people, to fill in the lost details, to explain that road rash on their face, to preach “by His wounds we are healed”, to “kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight” (another Bruce Cockburn quote from memory). And here’s the happy result - the gloves come off, the disconnect vanishes and we find ourselves face down again, but this time in thanksgiving and in worship, gloriously aware, aware of glory.

 

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence,

so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  Hebrews 4:16

 

Pastor Richard Bowler

Jasper Park Baptist Church

jpbc1@telus.net

 

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