This past summer, a friend of mine went overseas to participate in an archeological dig. From just the pictures she posted on Facebook I saw her donning a wide-brimmed sun hat and kneeling over carefully turned earth with trowel in hand. She was uncovering a mystery hidden from sight for thousands of years. 

I wonder what she uncovered – a fossil, a bone fragment, a sherd of pottery, a tool or utensil from a bygone age? Or, maybe, as I like to imagine, she was discovering a round, stone decal on which words or images were inscribed, carefully and meticulously sculpted. 

All these possibilities reveal a story, a narrative, of lives lived and cultures celebrated, lives and cultures far removed from our day and age.

Sometimes the truth of someone’s life is not easily accessible nor perceptible, at least from the surface. On the surface of things, we don’t get the complete picture. On top of that, no one can easily plumb the depths to uncover the totality and truth of one’s life buried deeply beneath the surface.

On the surface we conclude many things about what we see, good and bad. We may conclude it’s not worth digging beneath the surface. To uncover it all may be too much for us, even if we wanted to.

When God created Michael, God imprinted an aspect of the divine onto Michael life. Like a potter or sculptor, God fashioned Michael to reflect some unique manifestation of God’s self (Genesis 1:27).

Over the course of Michael’s life, the earth, the world, weighed down heavily on him – as it will onto all of us. Layer upon layer, year after year, the sediment collects and the dirt, sand, and roots which pack down over top the true manifestation of Michael’s life. 

How he positioned himself, responded to the weight of it all, had something to do with how deeply hidden his beauty and true self was hidden from us. Of course, other factors affected the course of his journey as well. But there is a deeper truth to behold in our contemplation of and thanksgiving today for Michael’s life.

Even when you who were closest to Michael struggled in loving him, God is like my archeology friend. God, on bended knee, is faithfully and persistently dedicated to uncovering the original work of God. There is a promise, after all, from scripture told by the prophet Isaiah: That God will never forget the work of God’s hands – “I have inscribed you,” God says, “on the palm of my hands” (49:15-16).

God has etched your being onto God’s own being. And so, God can never forget you, and will always remember each and every one of us no matter how deeply we are buried under the weight of the world.

And sometimes, as God continues to faithfully work at digging, uncovering, and chipping away the packed earth from our souls, we get a glimpse of what lies underneath. We catch a glimmer of grace.

Some of you witnessed moments, revelations, of what lay deep beneath the surface of Michael’s life just days before he died.

He hugged you. He told you he loved you. He held the words of the Lord’s Prayer close to his heart, and confessed this prayer warmed him when he was cold. Graciously, these revelations rose to the surface of his life for you to behold.

God will never stop, with each one of us, until life has gone full circle to the way it was in the beginning, so we can realize our true, unencumbered, unique self, beloved eternally by God. This is the promise of faith. 

Thanks be to God.