Doers of the Word
Sunday, August 1
A glass of water
A crowd is being fed by Jesus, and continue looking for him. For what reason? He startles them with a catch phrase, “seek rather the food that endures.”
A woman spoke quietly of the death of her father. He had been a proud man, she said, a man who spent all his work days on a Carolina farm. He kept holy the Sabbath (Sunday) praising God for life, seed and family. He is now in the hospital with cancer and the last week of his life added a stroke which left him speechless. As the family visited his bedside, his eyes would moisten with frustration and grief as he tried in vain to speak to those he loved so dearly.
On his last day alive, the family gathered together: three children, two brothers and a sister. With strength fading, the father motioned to his son that he wanted a glass of water. The son brought him a full glass of water, which he held to the mouth of his father. But the old man pushed the glass away and moved his finger from the glass toward his son, as if to say, “You drink it.”
Surprised, the son lifted the glass to his lips and drank from it, then the father motioned towards his daughter, indicating that she should drink some, too. Sensing what his father wanted, the son passed the glass to his sister, and she drank. Now the father pointed toward the other son, and the daughter suddenly saw what was happening. “My God,” she gasped, “he is serving communion!” The act remained the same but a whole new level had been reached.
There in the face of death, the father summoned a sacramental water glass to administer the feast of life. And so, the story becomes not simply a moving account of a father’s death, but a higher revelation of how this man saw his last journey and ultimately how his children saw it.
Now anyone looking through the window of their house would see only some family members having a drink of water. Perhaps they were thirsty. But those with spiritual insight would realize that this was no longer a glass of water. It was a story about Eucharist, the foretaste of the eternal banquet and sign of that man’s faith, hope, and love.
Look beyond surface and image. It’s not “seeing is believing,” it’s “believing is seeing.”