G-S is for
Grace and Safety
The person pictured here is a "crossing guard." Heh, heh; could a student of Bob Bertram resist the temptation to pun here? The job of a crossing guard is to get folks safely from here to there by accompanying them yet leading the way and putting oneself at the forefront of the risk. Does that sound like Someone you know?
It sounds like two somebodies I know. One, the one you thought of, is Jesus, son of Mary. The "here" is the dominion of darkness into which every human, but him, is born. The "there" is his kingdom. That crossing he did not need to do himself. Nevertheless he came to his crossing, having put on a uniform of our flesh, and accompanied us on this crossing through death into life. He, going ahead, exposed himself to the forefront of the risk and took the brunt of that Cross. So our Crossing is in the relative comfort of Baptism, thanks to our crossing Guard. As great as is his Grace, so is our Safety.
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For 46 years she crossed the pupils of Jefferson Elementary School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin across busy Oregon Street. But at age 88 she retired with difficulty. "It's part of me. Hard to separate myself. Forty-six years is a long time."
More than the length of time, I find the kind of time worth telling you readers about. See, Grace watched Saturday morning cartoons to be able to converse with the children. Do you get the idea that she was not content merely to get the children across the street, to "do her job"? Rather, upon the platform of her job (posting herself at the corner six times a day, Monday-Friday) she befriended the children. "You can't just say 'How was school?' all the time. You have to be able to talk about what interests them." So she watched Packer football, too, for the 4th and 5th grade boys. And the Hmong children, fresh from their south-east Asian home, with little English? "They understand an arm around the shoulder. Kindness is universal."
Kindness she showed in indirect ways, too. Aware that being a good example is a kindness, "I didn't complain or grumble--or curse the speeders." And she let the kids know that she was active at her church, whose building was visible, a block away from her crossing. (Active indeed: she used to help me as a catechist to the 8th-graders every Wednesday when she was younger--in her early 80's.) And despite her friends saying, "You're still a crossing guard?" she did not follow her inclination to retire a year sooner. For the school building was razed and replaced and she "wanted to hear the kids reaction to the new building."
See what I mean about reflecting her own Crossing Guard's style? As he took his job personally, so did she. For her the children were not beings-to-be-crossed. Though she worked for them, she recognized them as more than objects of her work. Little as they were, she concerned herself with them. Just the thing, the Crossing Guard will say when he returns with his holy angels and all his glory, that distinguishes Grace and other sheep from the goats.
Her doing more than her job does not mean she did less, or neglected the techniques of her trade: "When I was trained 46 years ago they told us to wear white gloves. The police officer showed us his two hands, one with a glove and one without. The difference in visibility was great. I still demonstrate that to kids or adults who ask why I wear white gloves." (Not that that is the only thing Grace relies on for visibility. Through Wisconsin winters, this gentle, petite, elderly lady wears a blaze orange hunting suit. "Now if a car hits me I'll know they were aiming," she chuckles.)
It will not surprise you that the kids responded to her personal interest in them. "My friends say I have control over the kids without having to boss them. They're good kids." Don't you get the sense that Grace's grace brought out the best in them? Her kindness had its effect in that she could rule them not against their wills but with them.
Of course, this is not a perfect analogy to how Grace's own Crossing Guard governs her and us. He does not bring out the best in us--at least not without first putting himself into us so that he is the best in us, far better than anything we innately had in us. But his governing us is like Grace's, not using bossy pressure but using our appreciative regard for his Grace to us and the Safety we enjoy because of it. In fact, isn't that how he gets us to do what Grace has done, use our jobs as a platform for service in the style of Christ?
To give up that job, even at age 88, seems like an early retirement. She feels even a physical let down without work to look forward to, "feeling needed, getting fresh air, seeing the kids."
tbcm
Lastly, LUTHER AND LABOR
Luther's words here would probably seem too extreme to believe, if we had not just seen how well "GS" bears them out. But check that out for yourself, and for your delight and encouragement, for they are about you, dear Chrsitian Reader, as well.
Luther, commenting on John 15:5, writes (LW 24:230f) that the believer says "I know and profess before all the world that by the grace of God I believe in that Man, and I am resolved to remain with Him and to surrender life, limb, and everything rather than deny Him. In this faith I stand and live. Then I go forth, eat and drink, sleep and wake, rule, serve, labor, act, and suffer all in the faith in which I am baptized.
"The life of such a person and whatever he does, whether great or small and no matter what it is called, is nothing but fruit and cannot be without fruit; for in Christ he has been born into a new existence, in order that he may constantly be full of good fruit. Everything such a person does becomes easy for him, not troublesome or vexacious. . . . By contrast, the others, who do not have faith . . . do everything with a heavy heart. Consequently, they can never be happy or have the assurance that what they do is pleasing to God. . . . Therefore it is true that whatever is done without and apart from Christ amounts to nothing and is altogether corrupt, useless and worthless. . . .
"But the world with its pseudo saints and its sects cannot understand this. They say: "what kind of Christian can such a person be? All he can do is to eat and drink, work in the home, tend the children, guide the plow, etc. That much I can do just as well and better!" . . . Judged by such common tasks as those performed by father and mother, child, servant, husband and wife, the heathen will fare better than we.
"But now Christ says that only those works are good fruit that are done by people who are and remain in Him. And all their life and everything they do is called good fruit, even if it were something more menial than when a farm hand loads and hauls manure. . . . For the works of the heathen do not spring and grow from Christ the Vine [even if the work is identical,] but the works of Christians proceed from faith in Christ, [so] they are all true and useful fruit.
martin luther
As this goes to print, another father of Crossings, Bob Bertram is being treated for a brain tumor. Whatever the medical prognosis, we know in Whose hands Bob remains for the Final Prognosis. Please pray.tbcm
