Leslie Weatherhead was a theologian, author, and pastor of the Church of England who lived in London during World War II. Besides serving his church, he served as an air raid warden in the years of the blitz. His work entailed surveying the damage when the all-clear was sounded following a bombing raid.
One night, after a particularly devastating raid, he commenced his rounds and to his surprise discovered an 8-year-old boy sitting amidst the fallen buildings.
Weatherhead approached the child and asked him where he lived. The little boy pointed at the pile of rubble, for it had once been his home.
Weatherhead asked the child where his parents were and discovered that the boy’s father was in the navy and far from London.
The boy’s mother, he learned, had been killed in a bombing raid two nights earlier. At that point Weatherhead got down to his knees to look the boy straight in the eye and he asked, “Tell me son, who are you?”
With that the boy began crying and through his tears responded, “Mister, I ain’t nobody’s nothing.”
Years later, in writing about that night, Weatherhead commented that the encounter with that child was something he could never forget.
The little boy’s pain had been overwhelming, raw, and heartbreaking. He felt, in his time of tragedy, that he was unconnected and unimportant to anyone else in the world.
He belonged to no one.
Weatherhead turned the child’s care over to those who could help to place him with caring adults in the hopes that he would once again come to see himself as someone’s somebody.
We are writing this as Easter approaches.
It is surely the most significant of all Christian holidays, and imagery abounds for explaining its meaning and helping us to grasp its significance.
Simplistic though they may seem, eggs, bunnies, and lilies all have their place and are capable of elucidating portions of the tale.
The lengthening of days in the season and the receding of winter’s deadly bleakness are also significant.
They, too, tell a part of Easter’s message.
But there is more, isn’t there?
We almost hesitate to attempt conveying it.
Symbols fall short.
The inexplicable remains.
All we can say is that where there was darkness, there is light. Where there was barrenness, there is abundance. Where there was deadly hopelessness, new life has sprung forth.
We cannot fully explain the wonder we attempt to claim and share.
But if we try, we can perhaps demonstrate what we cannot explain: if we live in light of the Easter miracle, our own lives are capable of astonishing transformation, too.
And maybe the miracle of Easter contains an element that is, after all, fairly simple to understand.
God so loved that world that nothing was too dangerous, too onerous, or too difficult to undertake to convey that love to us. No sacrifice was too great to offer on our behalf.
We’re not nobody’s nothing. We’re Someone’s sombodies. We’re God’s.
Hallelujah and Happy Easter!
