Billy Died Saturday Afternoon

“Billy died Saturday afternoon. They disconnected life-support.”

That is how the prayer chain email started.

Billy was 17 when he went into a car and came out in a coma. Three weeks later he responded to the music played by a brother that I have yet to meet and hope abounded. But the next day, his brain stopped showing any activity on one of those machines that man uses to try and measure God, so the men that try to be god, unplugged the life-support. And Billy died.

I didn’t know Billy, except through the prayer chain. I don’t know Billy’s mother or father. But I am a father and I am the son of a mother. And the reality of hope flickering and dying in a cold gray hospital room hit me hard tonight. In a moment I am going to go into a quiet room. I am going to go into a quiet room to pray and to cry.

And for a moment it will be clear that all the worship band practices, all the church picnics, all the downloaded bible studies in the world don’t mean anything in the face of a humanity that real. All the fancy arrangements and well crafted harmonies won’t come close to filling the emptiness that Billy is leaving in the lives he is leaving behind.

But that to which we sing; the one to whom we pray and cry from the depths of our frail humanity opens His arms and says, “Come to me. Come and let me hold you.“ He opens His arms and says, “No you don’t understand. Don’t try. From the place where you look out, it doesn’t make sense.”

It doesn’t make sense that an image of God so full of life would stop becoming full of one to become more fully the other. It doesn’t make sense that hope would flicker and then go out leaving shadows disappearing against hospital gray walls.

But in some realm of our existence -- beyond the realm of our knowing; the place from which comes a peace that passes all understanding -- somehow it doesn’t have to make sense in these jars of clay.

Unspoken in the questions, “Why?” is the question “Where?” Where is God to be found in all of this?

“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (I John 4:12)

Where is God to be found in all this? God lives in our love and His love is made complete in us. If Billy’s dying sparked a bit of love in the life of someone that knew him only as a name on a prayer chain, then Billy’s living gave that one man a precious moment to complete God’s love.

So still we sing. We sing of a love we don’t understand. We sing of a love that let Billy die for a purpose beyond our reason. We sing of a love that sent a Son to die beyond our reason that we might be loved beyond our deserving. That we might live and love. That we might live in love.

Because in the end, love is all that matters. And God so loved the world.

Praise God in all things and tonight may God bless Billy.

Thank you, Billy.

Thank you, God.