What is our ending?

Barlowgirl - Beautiful Ending

Click the link and have a watch and a listen.

I came across this song earlier and was inspired in a way I normally am not.  I'm grateful for that. 

The lyrics hit me but also the video itself.  I found the former to be honest and passionate and the latter to be symbolic of what I believe is one of the deepest desires of our hearts which is to find, and to be found, by mom and dad.

I have often thought that one of the unfortunate effects of Adam and Eve's original sin was a deep wound of rejection which slashed itself onto the hearts of all of their children after them.

Our first parents rejected us.  In saying no to God's plan for life they said a strong, intentional "no" to their children, too.  Thus, death was brought into the world and forced upon multitudes who never wanted it.  Many children - you and I - were rejected by the fore bearers of life - Adam and Eve.  We were orphaned.

(Adam and Eve with their dead son, Abel - his death being the eventual fruit of their own sin.)

Though God has always accepted us at the deepest level of our being we can't help but feel from time to time that initial - and all too often repeated - rejection from those who were supposed to image that love from God.  Instead of being shown Images of God we were simply rejected.  There is no pain greater than to be rejected, abandoned.

In the music video the little boy is reunited with his parents who have gone off in search for their little one.  A band member eventually lovingly points the boy in the right direction; the direction of his parents. The ending is how we all desire it to be - beautiful.

But the lyrics leave the question open for us.  "So tell me what is our ending? Will it be beautiful?"

I've shared before that one of the most meaningful passages in Scripture for me is where Jesus says, "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you" (or "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.") It's meaningful for me because I have meditated upon that sense of orphanhood that we can all feel; that sense of rejection and abandonment not only from our first parents (Adam and Eve) but from so many others.  "Why didn't they want me?" We can feel alone, unwanted, desolate.

There is no way to heal a wound caused by a lack of love except through a greater love.  If our first father and mother rejected us it is nonetheless true that God intended to heal that human rejection by human means (hence why God became a man in Christ.) We know that, from the very beginning of the Church, Christians have seen Jesus and Mary as that New Adam and New Eve who did not say no and reject us but gave an all embracing yes us their spiritual children.  At the site of the fall there is a tree, a sinful man and a sinful woman.  At the site of the redemption there is also a tree - the Cross - but not there is a sinless man and a sinless woman (the one who is "full of grace" in Luke 1:28) Jesus turns to the "disciple whom He loved" (always symbolic of me and you) and says "Behold, your Mother."  (John 19:27)

He did promise, after all, that He would not leave us orphans.  Every child deserves a father and a mother.  I believe the fullness of the Christian life is experienced only after there is a reunification both to Jesus as the New Adam and perfect Image of the Father but also an acceptance of Jesus' mother as our mother and New Eve (as that beloved disciple did who "took her into his very home" (John 19:27 - have you taken Mary into your home? Into your heart as Mother?) She is the perfect Mother whom our little orphaned hearts have so long looked for.  Perhaps we never thought God was good enough to fulfill such a deep desire; to have a perfect Mother as well as a perfect Father.  A long for the perfect human Mother and Father we were supposed to have.  Did God somewhere along the line forget that we needed a Mother in addition to needing a Father?  Yes, God is our eternal Father; our source and goal and Jesus, the God-man, brings us into God's divinity.

But even the God-man needed a Mother.  That's why He gave her to us:

"Behold, your mother."  

We wouldn't be fully human without a Mother and, I'll be bold enough to say, we can't be fully Christian either.  If Jesus really did give Mary as a Mother to us "beloved disciples" then we are missing out on so much if we don't yet have a personal relationship with our mother.  

"So tell me what is our ending? Will it be beautiful?"

Mothers always make things beautiful.  

In fact, Jesus' mother formed the most beautiful thing ever created - the humanity of Christ.  Let let the Holy Spirit, through Mary your mother, form your humanity, too, so that you can more perfectly image the beauty of her Son, Jesus.  Accept not only the New Adam as a father but the New Eve as a mother.  This is God's plan for His children - not to leave us orphans.

-MM