An Easter Christmas

An Easter Christmas

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Last Dec. 23, our family lost 26-year-old Bonfilia Emile ”Apa” Utzurrum-Cueva to a devastating illness. As we grieved her untimely passing, I reflected on the gift of an Easter Christmas. For my New Year’s column, I’d like to share these thoughts:

Scripture: “God raised us from death to life with Christ Jesus, and he has given us a place beside Christ in heaven. God did this so that in the future world he could show how truly good and kind he is to us because of what Christ Jesus has done. You were saved by faith in God, who treats us much better than we deserve.[a] This is God’s gift to you, and not anything you have done on your own.” (Ephesians 2:6-8)

Wonderful Easter Christmas greetings! I call this occasion an Easter Christmas because the true message of this season not only brings our focus on the coming of the Gift which is the Christ-Child, but actually connects us to the Resurrection on Easter which is the fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation and redemption.

Apa’s death, like the rare solar eclipse we enjoyed on the last week of the year, is a special event which also occurs rarely in the life of a community of faith.

For when death occurs at Christmas, it brings to us the reality and the significance of celebrating an Easter Christmas. For the message of the Easter Christmas brings to full circle God’s message of His great love for mankind. From the coming of God’s gift 2000 years ago, to the fulfillment of His declaration that “God so loved the world” in John 3:16, to the fulfillment of His promise three decades later, when the curse of death was overcome and defeated and the door to eternal life was opened, with the path to full fellowship and reconciliation with the Father-Creator, “for whosoever believes in Christ.”

The time to deal with the death of Apa could not have come at a worse time for us. Coming two days before Christmas Day, caught right in the middle of the hectic holiday rush for gift-shopping, partying and merry-making, Apa’s illness and untimely death was a great inconvenience to her family, her friends, the medical staff, and finally, the church workers!

If we could have chosen another time to let Apa go, any other time, we would not have chosen this season in our lives.

Adding to the normal inconvenience this holiday season brings, Super typhoon Ursula decided to make its visitation upon us. The storm complicated travel plans for relatives who planned to come from distant shores to be part of Apa’s send-off.

So everything that go wrong in a person’s death, happened in Apa’s dying! The holiday season’s calendar did not cooperate, the weather did not cooperate, the banks and stores did not cooperate, making it difficult to access to much needed money and supplies. Even Silliman, our mother community, is on a holiday shutdown.

And yet, inconvenient as it should have been, God sprinkled little showers of grace to allow us to deal with what would have been impossible situations. People on holiday got out of their comfortable beds to walk the extra-mile for Blanche and Freddie. Family took charge with essential arrangements to allow Blanche and Freddie the needed time and space to grieve.

Indeed, God could not have timed Apa’s dying more perfectly. Just like the inconvenience shared by Mary and Joseph at the stable, God’s grace allowed them to go through the miraculous birth at Christmas.

So, too, God’s grace carried Apa’s family through the inconvenience of her death.

The timing was perfect because this occasion for grieving reminds us that there is a greater joy, and wonderful glory with the coming of the Christ!

We have been distracted too long by the material and commercial hijacking of God’s Christmas message for us. Pervasive everywhere have been the tantalizing sights, smells and sounds of a celebration far removed from the glory of that night when the heavens broke out with Gloria in excelsis Deo! when all of creation rejoiced with the coming of God’s gift for mankind to restore its fellowship and communion with Him for all eternity.

Without much warning or indication, Apa had to bear unexpected and unwanted misfortune. Diagnosed a year ago with her illness, there seemed hope that treatments could bring full recovery.

Three weeks ago, Apa was her bubbly self, celebrating my retirement and book launches with the rest of the family and our community. A few days later, she was rushed to the emergency room.

While in hospital confinement, the medical indications hinted that the recovery prayed for would not be forthcoming. With ruthless swiftness, the disease ravaged her body with severe and puzzling medical complications, and those around her, while on a miracle-watch, could finally only pray that Apa be released from her painful suffering and taken home into our Lord’s bosom. Apa’s health condition was so complex and unique, our friends in the medical profession felt compelled to hold impromptu consultations among themselves of her case.

Apa’s dying at such a young age of 26, and leaving behind innocent five-year old Luke Xanti led us to question why God would take way a life with so much promise. And this has compounded our grieving all the more.

But God, in His infinite wisdom, has decided to take Apa away from us. We are completely baffled, and ask why?

We find assurance in the Apostle Paul’s declaration in that great chapter on Love in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I have been fully known.”

While we cannot fully understand God’s purpose for Apa, we know that just as He manifested His great love for us in Jesus Christ, He continues to act and move in our lives with love as His sole motivation. And in Apa’s dying, God gives us an Easter Christmas reminder.

God speaks directly and forcefully to us not only to remind us but especially to confront us with the reality and beauty of His heavenly gift.

This wake-up call from God, much like the epidemic earthquakes which recently caused destruction, pain and suffering in our land, caused us pause, and drew back towards an all-powerful yet loving God. A loving God, who, in the cycle of Christmas and Easter, did not spare His Son as a sacrifice to redeem mankind from its folly, but also allows disaster and misfortune to happen to us.

Such is the nature of God’s justice. While there is no measure in the depth of God’s love for man, He cannot compromise His justice, and the consequences of man’s sin, his disobedience, cannot be avoided; and man cannot be spared. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:23).

When Apa was born, her Lola, Delia Metrillo, gave her the name “Bonfilia”. Her young cousins, however, had difficulty pronouncing “Bonfilia” so this promptly got shortened to “Apa” for gwapa for she was truly a beautiful child.

As she grew in God’s favor from childhood to young adulthood, her beauty transcended mere superficial physical attractiveness. As Apa developed into full personhood, she exuded a beauty of inner strength, kindness and joy. This is the beautiful Apa we have known, this is the beautiful Apa we will remember, this is the beautiful Apa we will keep in our hearts.

In her leaving us, God adds a deeper beauty for us to enjoy. For while we were yet dead in sin, “God raised us from death to life with Christ Jesus, and he has given us a place beside Christ in heaven. God did this so that in the future world he could show how truly good and kind he is to us because of what Christ Jesus has done. You were saved by faith in God, who treats us much better than we deserve.[a] This is God’s gift to you, and not anything you have done on your own.” (Ephesians 2:6-8).

As Apa leaves us, we receive a beautiful Christmas gift, the gift of being raised from death to Life with Christ Jesus! A glorious Easter Christmas, everyone!

________________________________

Author’s email: [email protected]

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