I would like to share a story with you that my wife entitled, Fish: a Love Story…
Last year my wife Amanda took a position as a property manager for a local apartment complex here in Augusta. One day while inspecting a unit that had been vacant for some time, she discovered a fish tank with just a couple of inches of water, housing two small florescent Danios, a red one and a yellow one.
Miraculously they were still alive having survived in this sad tank for at least a couple of weeks. So my wife, St. Amanda, patron saint of all creatures big and small, decided to rescue them and bring them safely home where they might live out the rest of their lives, what we thought would be just a few short days based on the horrific conditions in which they were discovered.
She then went and purchased her Danios a five gallon fish tank with a filtration system and heater. She also purchased a few small Java Ferns and Squidward’s home from Sponge Bob Square Pants, to complete their new environment. And the two Danios were so happy together. And Amanda often sat looking at her new fish and ferns filled with such satisfaction and joy.
After a couple of months, the yellow Danio developed a curvature in her spine, and her belly began to bloat. At first we thought she might be expecting, until one morning I discovered that she was missing all together. We had assumed that she had passed quietly during the night, and that her little body was resting somewhere in Squidward’s house. But upon further inspection, I discovered that she had gotten stuck behind the filtration system, and miraculously, I was able to set her free.
And the Danios were happy together again, and Amanda was thrilled that her two little fish were still alive.
A few more months passed, and Amanda’s Danios were still alive and well, and her Java Ferns had reproduced making baby Java Ferns. We had also purchased a large snail named Gary from a neighbor who turned out to be the perfect vacuum for cleaning up algae.
So in response to her budding new ecosystem, I bought Amanda a twenty gallon tank where Gary, the ferns, and the Danios could flourish, and where others could be introduced down the road into this vibrant and fishy community.
Well apparently, there is a learning curve when it comes to cultivating an aquarium, and after purchasing a handful of very fancy Guppies and a beautiful Jack Dempsey, we discovered them dead just a few days later because we forgot to add Aqua Safe Aquarium Water to neutralize the choline and heavy metals found in tap water. Yet miraculously again, the Danios seemed unfazed by our blunder.
We then added a fluorescent fresh water shark, two Angel Fish, an enormous Loach
named Larry, and five dwarf shrimp, this time purifying the water with the proper solution. And the Danios were very very happy with all their new friends, and Amanda spent even more time looking at her aquarium, filled with such satisfaction and joy over her accomplishment.
Next, we added a beautiful cobalt blue lobster named Louie, who turned out to be kind of a jerk, having chopped all of Amanda’s Java Ferns down. We also noticed that Larry the Loach had grown to an enormous size as of recently, and that all our dwarf shrimp were missing. Also, the red and yellow Danios were forced to live at the surface of the tank, to keep from being attacked by Louie the Lobster.
Amanda, having grown terribly annoyed by Louie’s destructive shenanigans, decided to give him to our son. So after buying a new tank, he was relocated to Tillman’s room where he lives out his crabby life in solitary confinement.
And again, the Danios were very, very, very happy to be freed from the tyranny of the Lobster, and Amanda once again sat gazing at her fish with such personal joy and satisfaction.
This past Thursday morning though, about a year and a half after rescuing her sweet Danios, I heard Amanda’s cry from the other room. I ran to her attention where I discovered the yellow Danio floating on the surface of the water. She was dead. And as my wife sat there watching the other red Danio swimming frantically around the tank trying to find his lost little yellow friend, she began to weep. Fish: a Love Story had finally come to an end.
Now I had never seen my wife cry over the other fish we had lost, but the Danios were special. They had been lost and abandoned and then rescued by her. They were the original two that had started this entire ecosystem. And as I fished Little Yellow’s lifeless body from the water, I too found myself filled with the same sense of grief and loss. No matter how much Amanda had loved her fish and gave her time and talent to seeing them flourish, she was unable to keep her Danio from dying.
As some of you may know, I am an English major, and having studied English Lit at Mercer University, I was required to take an entire year of Shakespeare. This was certainly a transformative period for me, yet what has stayed with me over the years is simply the knowledge of the two types of genres Shakespearian plays were written: the tragedy and the comedy.
All Shakespearian tragedies end in the death of the main character or characters, and all Shakespearian comedies end in a marriage of reconciliation and unity. Take Romeo and Juliette for example, where both star crossed lovers tragically die by suicide, or King Lear, where the mad king losses his mind and dies a tragic death. And then there is A Midnight Summer’s Dream and the Merchant of Venice, both are comedies that end in beautiful marriage celebration that is symbolic for unity and wholeness. Or as they say, and they lived happily ever after.
This is the difference between tragedy and comedy.
Having taken the time to recollect and write Fish: a Love Story this week, the sad strings of my heart inform me that this story certainly ends in tragedy. But yet, here we are in the third week of the Easter season of resurrection. And in our Gospel lesson today we find the resurrected Jesus appearing to his disciples who had just witnessed him die a shameful and tragic death a few days prior.
Jesus appears to them and gives them his PEACE, his wholeness, but they are terrified because in their hearts they saw their Messiah die upon a cross. This story was supposed to end in tragedy, yet Jesus is here standing among them in full resurrected bodily form (even eating a piece of broiled fish). And then he reminds them that everything written in the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms needed to be fulfilled by his death and resurrection.
But again, the disciples were so stunned, so blinded by the certainty of tragedy and death, that they were simply incapable of believing otherwise. So Jesus opens their minds to UNDERSTAND the scriptures, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:48).
We too, like the disciples, have been so conditioned by the veil of sin, separation, and death, that we too need Jesus to open our minds and give us his UNDERSTANDING. All of us have experienced the gut wrenching pain of losing the ones we love so dearly, finding ourselves powerless to bring this love back to life. As much time as we may spend cultivating a full and safe life for our loved ones to flourish within, in the end, we cannot save them, nor ourselves from the certainty of death.
But Jesus opened the disciples minds. And today, in this Easter season, he gives us UNDERSTANDING of a new paradigm, a new world-view that ends, not in tragedy and death, but in life everlasting.
Now think for a moment about Fish: a Love Story… Amanda spent so much of her time and talent and resources creating an ecosystem for life to thrive within. And she spent many hours gazing fondly upon her accomplishment of creating this underwater Eden for her fishy friends. Don’t you think that if she had possessed the power then, she would not have thought twice about bringing her dear Danio back to life?
Yet where do you think our passion and desire to love others so extravagantly originates? Why do you think that in the face of tragedy and death we feel such an unnatural pain and brokenness within our hearts?
Is it perhaps that we were never intended to be lost in sin, alienation, and death? Is it perhaps that Jesus has come down into our human tragedy to lift us up with him into the heavenly places? Does it not all point to Jesus, now a new man, a new resurrected man, the firstborn from the dead, who sits at the right of God forever making intercession for us?
For it is Christ who declares in the Book of Revelation, “Behold, I am making all things new” (vs. 21:5). It is Christ who has disarmed the powers of death and despair by his death and resurrection. Death no longer has the last laugh in the biblical narrative. What seemed like a tragic ending, death on a cross, is transformed in the Easter story.
So now we may find full assurance in the Book of Revelation, the Book of UNDERSTANDING that our part in the story concludes, or you could say truly begins, not in death, but in the resurrection of the Son of God. The story of the fallen human race and cursed creation ends, not in tragedy, but in comedy. For in the end, death is swallowed up in resurrection life, and we find ourselves, the honored bride of the bride-groom, seated around a banquet table at our own wedding, a wedding that celebrates the unity and wholeness of the human race and the entire cosmos.
For it is written in the last three chapters of the final book that concludes our New Testament, “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear… Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb! These are the true words of God” (Revelation 19:7-9).
And if this is true, perhaps Amanda will one day be reunited with her beloved yellow Danio again. Perhaps we will again wrap our arms around those we miss with such an unnatural pain: our husbands and our wives, our mothers and fathers, our brothers and our sisters, our children and grandchildren, grandparents and great grandparents, and yes, even our beloved pets.
Perhaps we will all be reunited together again, the entire human race and the cosmos, seated at the banquet table beside our radiant resurrected Groom: Jesus Christ. Wouldn’t that truly be an Easter miracle. Amen.
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