Re-Introducing Charlotte--July 30, 2020
"For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." [Mark 10:45]
Tonight, I had the bittersweet gift of reading again from Charlotte's Web to my children at bedtime. They both know the story--they've even seen it in movie version, already. So they know how the book ends. And so tonight, when I began the chapter where Wilbur first hears a mysterious voice that offers to be his friend, my daughter said, "Daddy, is this a sad part?" Well, of course, I knew what she was asking--she was already skipping ahead in her mind to the end of the story. The new friend that Wilbur the pig makes in Chapter Five is Charlotte, the eponymous spider of the book's title, who will give her talent, her time, and her love to help preserve Wilbur's life as the story goes along... and who will eventually spend the last of her energy and her life to save. My daughter knows, at seven years old, that the story will lead to her death, and that reality hung in the air in the warm light of a reading lamp at bedtime.
What could I say to her? She knows how the story goes, and I have a policy of not lying to people--not to anybody, as much as possible, and not to my children especially. So I said, "Well, honey, if you are remembering that in the end Charlotte dies after saving Wilbur with the messages she writes in her web, yes, that is true. That is coming in the story. But isn't it a beautiful thing that she loves her friend enough to let go of her own life to save him? And isn't it a beautiful thing that her babies all get to meet Wilbur at the end? And isn't it a wonder that we get to hear this part of the story now, about how they become friends, and how Charlotte comes to love Wilbur, and Wilbur learns how to love her back?"
She smiled and nodded. And so the story resumed, even though both of us know where it is going--and both of us know that the other knows, too. It was a bittersweet moment, to be sure, that moment of being re-introduced to Charlotte the spider.
You can't get away from that bittersweetness in the Christian story, either. As much as the stories of Jesus and the disciples can feel like the old family stories of the people of God, and as much as reading through the Gospels can have the feel of paging through the Church's family photo albums, we all know where the story is headed. We know that every encounter Jesus has with someone, every miracle, every calling of every fisherman, every meal shared at a scandalous dinner party, every time he touches an untouchable hand or lifts up a lifeless limb, is a step on the way toward the cross. That, by itself, is hard enough. But not only do we know where the story is going--Jesus does, too. He knows that his own story is headed toward a cross, toward death, toward burial in a borrowed grave... and yet he continues anyway. In fact, Jesus not only seems to know that his story is headed toward death, but also that his death becomes, like a certain talking spider's, a gift that saves someone else's life. Jesus knows that his own life is given up for the sake of preserving our lives, like "a ransom for many" as he says, and he is willing to let it be so. Like Charlotte spending the last ounce of her strength, Jesus surrenders himself completely in love, giving himself away to his last breath, in order that we might live. And as bittersweet as that is, there is something inescapably beautiful about knowing he has done this for our sake. We are, all of us, Wilbur the pig, given life because of someone whose life was spent on our behalf.
In the end, it's not simply that Charlotte dies that does anything. Spiders die all the time, after all, even in fiction. But her choice to spend her life, her energy, and her love, knowing what it will cost, that is sheer grace--and that is a rare and precious thing. There is Gospel in that, to be sure. It's not simply that Jesus' heart stops beating that does any saving. People die all the time, and lots of people got crucified by the Romans, too. But in Jesus we come face to face with God's choice to spend everything--in every day Jesus lived, every word Jesus spoke, every action Jesus took, and every tear Jesus shed--for the sake of bringing us all to life. And so, even though we know where this story is headed, we keep retelling it, because the beauty of it, as bittersweet as it is, reminds us we are so beloved.
Yes, it was a bit difficult of a moment reading a story to my children about the beginning of a friendship that we all knew was headed toward its eventual end. It's hard enough to face those times of loss in real life without adding extra sadness from books! But in the knowing, we also know how we are loved. And dear ones, you are indeed so loved. You are so loved by the Maker of the universe that from the beginning of our stories, God knew the costs of loving us would mean spending every last breath for our sake, and God went through with it anyway. The old midrash the rabbis tell about creation says as much--they say that before creation, God looked into the future and saw all of our rottenness and sin, all of our crooked actions, hateful words, mean-spirited choices, and rejection of God. And after having seen all of that, God forgave it all ahead of time, and then with a determined sigh, said, "Let there be light."
God knows from the outset that loving us will be painful. And yet God has chosen to go ahead with loving us anyway, as bittersweet as that truth is. On the days you feel most alone and abandoned... on the day your closest confidants and dearest relationships have evaporated into thin air like the morning dew, remember how you are loved. Remember how the story goes.
Lord Jesus, thank you for your love's endurance for our sake. Help us to remember in this day just how we are loved.
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