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The “Magi from the East” probably took the same path Abraham traveled from Ur to Canaan. Led by the Star, Eliot makes it clear with these lines that the three travelers could not choose the time of their trip. Who would have intentionally set out in the dead of winter?

Eliot noted that he wrote this poem very quickly. ‘I had been thinking about it in church,’ he told his wife, Valerie, years later, ‘and when I got home I opened a half-bottle of Booth’s Gin, poured myself a drink, and began to write. By lunchtime, the poem, and the half-bottle of gin, were both finished.’

The Book of Matthew is the only one of the synoptic gospels to include the visit of the Magi. Scholars argue that it is possible because of the declaration of “kingship” that these three foreigners bring to the Infant.

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Another interesting fact about the opening lines of “Journey” is that they are an almost direct quote from a sermon given in 1622 by a preacher named Lancelot Andrewes. Eliot puts the lines in quotations since they are not his original words:

“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.”

How could a Magus. traveling to worship the Christ Child, quote a line from a 15th-century preacher. It and the use of Biblical quotations the Magi could not possibly know add to the mysterious narration of the story.

REFLECTION: These few lines make it clear that Eliot did not find the road to salvation to be an easy one. How hard—or easy—was it for you to accept the gift of Jesus? Were you, unlike the Magi, prepared for the journey?

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Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

 2 Corinthians 1:2-4 (NIV)

A STEP OF FAITH

It was raining that Sunday morning and the drops outside my windshield matched the sorrow in my soul. I was on my way to church, but I was not heading to the place of worship where my husband, Ron, and I had raised our children and spent most of our married lives. After my husband’s death a year before, I had found no comfort in the church where we had both taught Sunday School, where I had served as Awana Commander, where Ron had been a trustee, and where we had dedicated our three children to God.

As I drove down Philadelphia Pike, trying to keep resentment from my heart, I reminded myself we had not done those things for the church building, but for God. And if the congregation did not know how to address the needs of a new widow, then I had every right to seek solace in another community. I had no idea where I would find it, so I let God lead me.

There were, on that rainy Sunday morning, two notions in my head. One was a ministry that had existed several years ago called Angel Food, a non-profit organization that provided groceries to those in need at a reasonable price. The second notion was my husband’s voice, echoing his idea that, “That seems like a nice little church” whenever we passed the stone building in Claymont.

Prodded by those two thoughts, I pulled into the parking lot at The Atonement Methodist Church.

5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.

2 Corinthians 1:5-6 (NIV)

NEW BUT FAMILIAR

I entered the building a bit warily, only passingly familiar with Methodism from the times my paternal grandmother would take my brother and I to Sunday School. But the building was warm and friendly, and I was greeted with equal warmth. I made my way into the sanctuary, uplifted by stray rays of light emerging through the stained glass windows. Raised as a Catholic by my mother, the colorful displays of Jesus were familiar to me. I took a seat in the back.

Alright, I said inwardly to my husband, let’s see if this really is a nice little church.

Several women seated near me offered their names and a smile. One moved over in the pew and asked me to join her. This is nice, I thought. Since my best friend had moved last year, six months after Ron’s death, I had sat alone in the pew, despite reaching out to several women including the Women’s Ministry Leader.

The organ began to play the prelude and I felt myself drawn back again to Grandmom’s church where the pipe organ’s notes cascaded through the room. This felt good, I realized. This felt right.

It wasn’t too much longer before a gentle woman with gray hair slid into the pew next to me. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Pastor Amy. What brings you to our church today?”

And I found myself telling her, this kind but veritable stranger, how I had been widowed and feeling lonely and a bit lost. How the church where my husband and I had served for so many years didn’t seem to quite know what to do with me. How, when I asked the minister, I was told it was because of the COVID pandemic.

“Nonsense,” said Pastor Amy. “You are still a widow in need. I  hope you find comfort here.”

And I did, returning the next week with my autistic adult son who could not take the sensory overload of blinking screens and loud drums on the stage, but could settle in quietly next to me and spend time in worship.

 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

2 Corinthians 1: 7 (NIV)

THE RIGHT PATH

Three years later, and Allen and I have been embraced by the people of Atonement. We have found comfort; we have found ministries; we have found friends. It was not easy, but I dared to step into a new life as a widow with a disabled son; God led me to the doors of a “nice little church” where my writing ministry has continued to blossom.

Undertaking a new path and allowing God–and my husband!–to lead me was not easy. But as Atonement Methodist enters into a new phase, I know we are on the right path.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness. (II Corinthians 12:9, NIV)

FINISHED

The day was finally over. I leaned back in my second-hand rocking chair and closed my eyes, struggling to quiet my nerves. I’d been running on adrenalin for the last six days, doing everything that needed to be done for my husband and our children, having no time to sort through my own emotions. I thought of the boxes and bundles in the dining room, all things I would need to sort through and take care of; of my two older children who had just gone back to their homes with their partners; and of Allen, my autistic adult son, who had thrown his tie and suit jacket on the coach a few moments ago. I’d heard the door to his room slam; the sounds reverberated through our little brick house. 

Keeping my eyes closed, I slid from my rocking chair and touched my knees to the laminate floor–so much better for wheelchairs and walkers than carpeting-and let the tears–so carefully controlled for six days–flow down my face. 

“Thank you, Lord,” I prayed. “Thank you that it is finally finished. Thank you that Ron is finally healed.”

I would need to become accustomed to seeing the empty lift chair on the other side of the room, the one Allen and I had struggled to bring home from a sale in Kennet Square just a few months ago, but my heart would be full.

 After more than two decades of illnesses, my husband had been called Home.

ASKING

During the years when we were, more often than not, inhabiting some room at some hospital in the tri-county area, my thoughts would often stray to the Apostle Paul as I waited out surgery or a test. While no one is really sure what the problem was, it is made clear in the Book of Second Corinthians that Paul prayed three times for a physical affliction to be removed from him. And God had his reasons for saying “No”. 

In addition to this burden, Paul had been beaten, flogged, left for dead, thrown into a filthy prison cell with rats and mice, and confined in chains. Some of Paul’s physical features have been part of a story Titus told Onesiphorus that Paul was, “small in size, bald-headed, bow-legged, well built, with eyebrows that met, rather long-nosed and full of grace.” Add to his unimposing figure the scars and scabs of his mistreatment, emaciation from prison scraps, and head injury. Not what one might suppose the impressive Apostle looked like.

But he was full of grace. When God said, “No. Sorry, buddy, no healing for you,” Paul’s response was not anger but acceptance. Without physical features worthy of boast, Paul replied, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (II Corinthians 12:9). If God had healed Paul, would he have been as effective in the early church? Would he have gone on the Apostolic missions to Cyprus, Syria, Cilicia, and Arabia?  Paul trusted that God knew best.

TRUST

We had that trust as well. Through the many, many years of my husband’s illnesses, myself, my children, my friends, and my church continually prayed for Ron’s healing. We knew it was within God’s power to take away both the physical and mental maladies that assaulted him. We knew it; we believed it; we waited for it to happen.

And while we waited for a miracle, we “let the power of Christ” rest on us. We filled each hospital room with hymns and cards from my school students. We prayed for the medical staff that entered the room. We reached out to both patients and families in waiting rooms. We comforted those who lost someone; we rejoiced with those who left the hospital well again. We knew God heard us (I John 5:14).

Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic since her diving accident in 1967, stated in interviews that she often felt God, by not healing her, had deserted her. But she came to discover that God had a greater purpose for her life. Joni said, “God may remove your suffering, and that will be a great cause for praise. But if not, He will use it, He will use anything and everything that stands in the way of His fellowship with you. So let God mold you and make you, transform you from glory to glory. That’s the deeper healing”(Interview with Marvin Olasky, 2013).

YES

I rose from the floor and crossed over to the maroon lift chair where, six days ago, Ron had fallen asleep and awakened in Heaven. I touched it lightly, remembering: the mother of a chronically ill daughter with whom I prayed during ketamine treatments; the heart patient my daughter and I had met at Temple Hospital who left our presence to go home and call her estranged son; the grieving widower who accepted Jesus in the waiting room at Riddle Hospital, knowing he would see his wife again in Glory.

Would these people have heard the Gospel if Ron had been healed? Would Paul have gone on the mission trips if he had been a handsome and physically fit man? Would Joni have had a worldwide impact on others if God had cured her?

I settled into Ron’s chair, sensing my husband’s presence. Moving on without him would not be easy, but I knew his life had not been in vain.

God’s “no” had resulted in many saying “yes” to Jesus. 

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