Life frequently tries to teach me the same lessons as Scripture. This past week has been pointedly reminding me of the fragility of life. Close to home, in my parish three dear individuals passed from this mortal life. Even one loss is painful; three so close together seems cruelly excessive.

But lifting my eyes from my immediate surroundings, I am confronted by the sudden failure of the Minneapolis bridge _ one I crossed myself on more than one occasion. Individuals, who had every reason to assume the security of having just one more routine trip across a familiar bridge end as unremarkably as it had every time before, were without warning dropped into the depths. The bridge failed. Their lives were cut instantly short.

St. James warns against the presumption of saying with false certainty what we will be doing tomorrow. "You do not know about tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, �If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that.’" (James 3:14, 15). The lesson was not to take tomorrow for granted. Tomorrow lies in God’s hands. Only God knows what it holds, where you or I will spend it.

"Here endeth the lesson"? Fortunately, no. If the lesson were no more than that life is uncertain and frail, we might be better off trying to find ways to forget it. Or we might be cowardly and avoid every possible risk: stay home, stay in bed, take no chances!

But that’s no way to live. To live and to love and to get things done, we must go and take chances. We must make assumptions, even without 100 percent assurances. We must cross some bridges, even knowing that some of them may crumble beneath us.

But there is something better. There is one bridge that never fails us. That bridge is Christ. In John’s gospel, Jesus speaks of himself as a bridge between heaven and earth, upon which the angels ascend and descend (John 1:51). Jesus not only bridges the gap between heaven and earth; he is also the bridge that all believers rely on to take us to tomorrow.

Living requires that we trust many things: people, powers, plans and things. Some carry us. Some let us down.

But no one has ever gone wrong by trusting Jesus.

Jesus sees us through the blessings of this life. Indeed, he is the one who blesses us, whether we know it or whether we receive those blessings from "an anonymous source." Jesus also sees us through the times when the bridge we are on falls apart. In the deep waters of life, he is present to carry us home. He is the bridge that never fails, because in addition to being truth and life, he is the way upon which we tread day by day, making our way to the tomorrow that is in his hand.

See you on the bridge. And may we all arrive safely on God’s side of the river.

Father Kenneth Hunter is rector at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Oneonta.