Just stop

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:51)

Stop. Please stop. I want to stand here for a moment … and just look at my empty hands. They tell me everything I need to know to live in a way my heart understands.

It happens most every Sunday morning. Filing forward, we near the Lord’s Table where stands a Eucharistic minister breaking bread and sharing the chalice of life’s own nectar. Most bow just before opening their hands to receive the host, as do I.

And then, I stand there, in this precious moment, my hands together, cupped and empty. And that’s what I want to see and feel, the grace of my emptiness, my hands eager to hold that which fills a place in my heart that nothing else can.

But before I do, I need to stop and look at the lines and creases, the little scars, the signs of age and wear from 72 years of living, the regrets of what was done and left undone, and feel the emptiness of my heart that has longed for this eternal love since I was a boy and first became aware that I was hungry for something to fill me, something I could not give myself or find anywhere else, except when I extended my emptiness to receive the fullness of what heaven and earth cannot contain.

Freely and fully given, the body and blood, the very flesh of Christ, completely surrendered, nothing held in reserve, right there extended in the hands of a gracious soul, for me, eternal love given, becoming part of my own flesh and blood, giving the fullness of life to me, the beloved of the Beloved.

Not just given, for Christ gives himself in joy that joy might fill every last corner of my oft-melancholy heart and bubble into tears of consolation that one such as I should be so loved, so wanted, so cherished. In her visions, Christ addressed the English mystic, Julian of Norwich, as she gazed on his Passion. ‘Are you well satisfied that I suffered for you,’ Christ asks. ‘If you are satisfied, I am satisfied. It is a joy and a bliss and an endless delight that ever I suffered my Passion for you.’

Yes, for you, for me, for every last blasted one of us. And the realization starts with empty hands, longing for life’s blessed fullness, known only when our emptiness is engulfed in the mystery of the Love who gives everything away.

A few years ago, a time came each Spring when I would gather communion ware from the sacristy, don my Indiana Jones fedora and head to a room crowded with eight-year-olds and their anxious parents—training for first communion.

The hat was needed because it was always an adventure that took unexpected and sometimes hilarious turns. The kids would ask questions their parents would never dare utter, and one or two would try to ‘stump the chump,’ i.e. me, which is not all that hard to do.

But there would come a quieter moment when I cupped my hands and asked them to circle around me and tell me everything they noticed about my hands. “What’s the most obvious thing you see,” I asked.

 

Answers flew: ‘They’re old. Lined. Wrinkled. Dry. Dirty.’ ‘No,’ I’d say. ‘The most obvious thing. What do you see?’ When silence settled, I’d speak the most human truth of all. ‘They’re empty.’

And so, aren’t we all? Everything we are, from the breath in our lungs to the next beat of your heart, is a holy and unrepeatable gift from the Giver whose joy it is to give the only thing God has to give, God’s own life, love unending, ever flowing from the Triune heart to we, empty vessels, intended for eternal fullness.

I don’t know if any of those eight-year-olds will remember our empty-hand exercise. But I hope some will. I hope one day they will look down and listen to their empty hands tell them everything they need to know about their deepest need  … and the heart of the One who joyfully fills it.

David L. Miller