1-5-15<\/p>\n
Life has been likened to a game through the ages by saints and sages, by poets and even pastors. We are warned on one side against a game of \u201ceat, drink, and be merry,\u201d because one day we die. Or sometimes we properly are reminded that like some sports, life can be a very grim game indeed. Me? Sometimes I see life as a grand chessboard. Unfortunately I see myself a checker, not a chess piece. Gulp.<\/p>\n
Today we think of our lives as vast jigsaw puzzles, not at all illogical. <\/p>\n
See how the pieces fit: babyhood, youth, adolescence, nonage, adulthood, dotage. They usually fit together well, although some of us, putting this puzzle together, really have to search for the piece that depicts maturity. But into each life also come pieces that represent curiosity, hope, disappointment, joy, sadness, grief, happiness, greed, ambition, pride, modesty, temptation, sin, desires, charity, unforgiveness and forgiveness, envy, intellectuality, faith\u2026<\/p>\n
Have I left any pieces out? Surely. But I have not only described life\u2019s jigsaw puzzles of me and you, but everyone who has, or has had, a pulse, on this earth. Those pieces, in my analogy, will be of different shapes, some of mine larger than yours; some of yours smaller than his or hers. We all, when complete, form different pictures.<\/p>\n
And we know, don\u2019t we, that even the kindly old lady down the street has had bouts with envy or pride. \u201cThere is not one amongst us in whom a devil does not dwell,\u201d Theodore Roosevelt once wrote to the poet Edwin Arlington Robinson; and we note he metaphorically used a lower-case \u201cd\u201d in \u201cdevil.\u201d He continued, \u201cIt is not being in the \u201cdark house,\u201d but having left it, that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the same way as the kindly old lady we all know, or TR\u2019s Everyman, there are awful folks and hardened criminals who have tender spots, and are capable of conversions. Think of Ebeneezer Scrooge; of St Paul who, as Saul, persecuted Christians; of John Newton, slave-trader who saw the light and write the words to \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n
But I want to suggest that no life, no matter how long, or how many pieces make up the picture, is or complete without a piece I did not list above. Did you catch that? Can I give you a hint? \u2013 it is shaped like an \u201cL.\u201d Ah! There are a couple holes in the jigsaw puzzle of completed lives.<\/p>\n
See the missing piece, shaped like an \u201cL,\u201d for Love. <\/p>\n
We have all experienced love, even the most miserable amongst us. We have expressed it and shared it \u2013 given it away \u2013 some of us more than others. But it is a common and irresistible force. To humans it is mysterious because, as serene as it should be, it can also bring heartache and disappointment. It can be the basis of charity but also frustration of broken dreams. <\/p>\n
There is a reason that 95 per cent of songs have love lyrics. Even \u201cYou Ain\u2019t Nothin\u2019 But a Hound Dog\u201d is a love song, about dashed dreams. So are the melancholy lieder of Franz Schubert, and the many grief-toned piano sonatas of the perpetually lovelorn and frustrated Beethoven.<\/p>\n
OK\u2026 that \u201cL\u201d piece fits there. One more hole in life\u2019s jigsaw puzzle. It looks like an L-shape could fit there, but a little differently. Maybe, turned around a little bit, it looks like a \u201cJ.\u201d Yes, J for Jesus. Now our life\u2019s jigsaw puzzle is a complete picture.<\/p>\n
Those similar-looking pieces, L and J, in fact make any life complete \u2013 especially puzzled lives, to reinforce my metaphor! They are the most important of our lives\u2019 components. Indeed, we are not complete without them. We occasionally might flatter ourselves that we are pretty good puzzle-masters; and perhaps so, occasionally. But we are not puzzle-makers, and cannot be. God plays that role.<\/p>\n
I sometimes wonder if Love did not exist, could we imagine it? Like a color that might exist but we\u2019ve seen; or a seventh sense: hard to imagine what we cannot imagine. God\u2019s Love, expressed in the Person of Jesus. He loved us so much as to create us and place us on this beautiful earth; loved us so much as to be forbearing as we humans have sinned and rebelled generation after generation; loved us so much as to share the Truth, offer forgiveness, to open Heaven\u2019s gates\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026 loved us so much as to lower Himself to the form of a human, His Son, to share our sorrows, show us the Way, and to offer healing and salvation to those who believe on Him; loved us so much as to remain amongst us in the form of the Holy Spirit, to guide, comfort, and empower us. To have His Son take our sins, our deserved punishment, upon Himself \u2013 could we imagine such love? And all this, while we were yet sinners?<\/p>\n
Surely this love \u2013 our puzzle-piece \u201cL\u201d and the similar-shaped \u201cJ,\u201d signifying Love and Jesus \u2013 can make the puzzles of our lives complete, whole\u2026 making sense.<\/p>\n
Look at either one, and if you really can\u2019t understand them fully, just accept them and fit them into your life\u2019s picture. Each one is a piece that passes understanding.<\/p>\n
+ + +<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Love of God\u201d is a traditional hymn performed here by the three brothers Aaron, Nathan, and Stephen Nasby, The \u201cNCrew,\u201d their band called Eli Eli. It is a hymn that comes as close as any to defining the indefinable, indescribable unspeakable mystery that is God\u2019s love. There is a legend that a madman in an asylum once heard the song through his barred window and wrote the words of the third verse on his wall. Somehow the plausibility of that story reflects the love, the peace, that passes understanding.<\/p>\n