“Post script” taken from Ian Coffey’s Advent book, “Shock and Awe”

Contributed by Gill Morrison

We ride with our backs to the engine. We have no notion what stage in the journey we have reached... a story is precisely the sort of thing that cannot be understood until you have heard the whole of it.

                                                                    CS Lewis

A group of soldiers were engaged in a battle on French soil during World War II.  In a furious exchange of fire, one man was shot and killed.  When the fighting died down, his companions took his body to a local church and asked the priest if their friend could be buried in the cemetery.

The priest enquired if the dead soldier was a baptised Roman Catholic. His friends replied that he was not, as he had been brought up a Methodist.  The priest offered his condolences but said the rules clearly stated that only Catholics could be buried in the churchyard.  As a gesture of kindness, though, he pointed to a field next to the cemetery and said, “That field belongs to the church.  Please bury your friend there by the fence that marks the end of the graveyard.  I am sorry but he must be buried on the other side”.

Years later, two of the soldiers made an emotional return to the church and searched for their friend’s grave – but they couldn’t find it.  They remembered digging the grave by the fence at the edge of the cemetery as instructed.  The fence was still there but there was no sign of the grave and the small wooden cross they had erected.  They went across to the church and found that the same priest was still there, although he was now an old man.  They asked about their friend’s grave and listened intently as the elderly priest related his story.  “That night, after you left, I could not sleep“, he told them. “My conscience was troubled and in the early hours I made an important decision.  Then first thing in the morning, I went out to the graveyard and moved the fence. You will find your friend’s grave inside our cemetery”.

As we celebrate God’s gift of his Son, Jesus, it is worth recalling why  ”The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14)  came to be the saviour of the world.

He didn’t come to be the Saviour for one religious type, one ethnic group or one social class.  Jesus didn’t bother with the barriers we often build but went out of his way to make outsiders insiders.  He is the Redeemer of all who accept him.  When Jesus came, God didn’t just move the fence – he took it away completely.

Truly, this is outrageous grace.

A Legend (author unknown)