Our human frailty is magnified in the presence of the holy. Read Luke 5:8-9. I’ve not been trained to think about my own human frailty. As an athlete, I was trained to work through pain to accomplish great things. As a musician, I was trained to practice, practice, practice if I wanted to be confident at the recital. As a student, I was told to study hard to get good grades. I took all these things into my adult life, applying them to every aspect of my being. When I became a pastor, those early lessons of working hard and not giving up continued to be applied to ministry. These qualities have served me well, but they also tend to mask the reality of my own human frailty. One of the requirements of becoming a minister was to take a course called CPE or Clinical Pastoral Education. The purpose was to gain experience as a chaplain in a hospital. My supervisor took me into a back room, almost a closet, and showed me a dying child on a blanket. The mother had given birth moments before. The child was not viable, and the mother in her darkest moment did not want to hold the child while it died. I was met face to face with human frailty. All the life lessons I learned in sports, music, and education were worthless at the moment. Deep down, I experienced the holy. I can’t remember if I held the baby, which couldn’t have weighed two pounds. I do remember the stillness and the struggle as the child lived out these last moments on a towel in a back room. I was not eager to leave the child, so I stood at the counter where it lay. There were no chairs to sit on. I don’t remember if I prayed. I remember being silent. I reflected on a story that I had been told many times by my parents. I wasn’t a year old when I became very sick, so sick that I had to be hospitalized. When my dad told the story, he would look away as if pulled back to the time when he watched me suffer, praying that I might live. Years later, acting as a chaplain, I gave the child the ministry of presence. I don’t know how much time passed before the struggle for the child was over. The Apostle Peter was young, strong, and confident. He had been fishing all night without a catch. When Jesus told him to throw the net into the deep water, Peter obeyed and brought forth a catch so great that he needed help to gather it in. Peter came to shore and ordered Jesus, “Get away from me for I am a sinful man.” His own human frailty was magnified in the presence of the holy. Jesus did not leave Peter. Instead, Jesus invited Peter to be a disciple. There are moments when we are overwhelmed by our own human frailty and, at the same time, are in awe of the holiness of God. When these moments happen, our faith grows if we lean into holiness in the midst of our own frailty.
