This is the night...
Ever notice how frequently nighttime shows up in scripture? Think about it. It was in the darkness that God saw light was good and separated the day from night. It was nighttime when God told Abraham to look up at the stars and count his future family members. It was nighttime when Jacob wrestled with the angel, who turns out to be God. God parts the Red Sea at night. God also sends manna in the wilderness…at night. And the Magi follow the star that leads them to Bethlehem at night. But nothing can compare to this night.
This night - this is it - the night everything changes. As the women, the Marys, arrive at the empty tomb while it is still dark, they encounter a dazzling light – an angel who tells them Jesus has risen. I imagine their shock, their fear, their excitement, their minds flooded with memories: the raising of the girl, the healings, Jesus feeding all those people, his exorcisms, how he walked on water and calmed the sea, the way they were told his face and clothing shone on the mountain.
Even with all that compelling evidence, even with the light-filled angelic being and Jesus in his own glorified light body, they still don’t know what to make of all that has happened. Let’s be real, resurrection is more than most human minds can even begin to fathom.
In our scientifically and technologically savvy, post-enlightenment world, we simply do not know what to do with unexplainable phenomena. We want logic and data, but especially after Covid, we just don’t seem to trust science the way we used to. Today, we’re more skeptical than ever of miracles. And yet, seemingly miraculous events still occur.
This is perhaps most prevalent in medicine, where inexplicable patient outcomes are often vaguely attributed to such explanations as “reasons yet to be discovered.” A 2023 NIH study explored occurrences of extraordinary medical events in pediatric medicine. One of the most provocative stories from this research is that of Sam, an eleven-month-old baby boy with a grapefruit-sized mass in his belly. Complications from surgery result in the need for a multi-organ transplant; without it, doctors give Sam less than 24 hours to live. His parents prepare for the worst. Remarkably, baby Sam holds on. For eight more weeks! He survives multiple potentially deadly complications. Doctors can’t explain the remarkable resilience of this kid. For his family, every additional day with Sam is a joy and a miracle. Then, right before Christmas – there is a donor! Sam receives five new organs. To everyone’s astonishment, he recovers, and quickly! No one in the medical community can come up with a logical explanation for Sam’s extraordinarily successful recovery.
Meanwhile, Sam’s family and church community have been praying. Hard.
One promising outcome of this study reveals the importance of respecting the diverse faith traditions of patients and families. Another, to my surprise, is a caution against expressions of rational hubris, that is, doctors who place too much certainty on purely scientific explanations. Even so, consensus seems to be that although some profess to have witnessed what they would consider bona fide medical miracles, doctors generally should maintain a disposition of professional ambivalence about these things. The most prudent posture seems to be that “Sometimes, we simply do not know why someone lives or dies.”
And sadly, for baby Sam to live, we’re all deeply aware that another child has died.
Participants in this study suggest we look at life, death, and healing with a wider lens, noting the transformations that can occur at the end of life, for patients and those who accompany them. They reinforce the goal for doctors, as much as possible, to assist patients with “good and holy deaths,” by helping facilitate emotional and spiritual healing, through practices like prayer, forgiveness, and gratitude, while doing their best to alleviate physical pain and suffering.[1]
The women in Matthew’s Gospel don’t need a research study to prove that inexplicable events at the darkest of times are transformative. Sure, there’s grief and disorientation at first. But, after the shock settles, there is a new perspective. Something miraculous has happened, and life (and death) will never be the same again.
How wonderful and beyond our knowing, says that gorgeous ancient prayer, the Exultet…
How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined, and we are reconciled to God.
We can sense it, can’t we? Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here. The mysterious, unlikely, inexplicable resurrection of Jesus Christ changes everything. Jesus’ good and holy death transforms the cross from a horrific symbol of violence to a symbol of redemption for us - God’s people - who, despite the darkness of our “apostasy and faithlessness, are somehow condemned to redemption.” That’s from Fleming Rutledge (and Shakespeare). Resurrection is the ultimate mystery, and the ultimate healing, for which there is no reasonable explanation, now, or yet to be discovered.[2] The only explanation is entirely unreasonable and unprovable. And that is love.
In the darkest streets of our cities, in wombs and tombs and hospital rooms, God comes and goes between the worlds as one of us. In the darkest times of our lives, God is there, sometimes hidden in the shadows. God the vulnerable, God the demonized, the marginalized, God the human, God the spirit, who so loves this world…who walks with us, stands with us, dies for us – and will do pretty much whatever it takes to get our attention…so that we may finally come to know and see and feel God’s inexplicable, miraculous, healing, redemptive love.
To that, may we say, at long last, Alleluia!!! He is risen. Now go and tell the others.
[1] Geraldine Huynh, Marghalara Rashid, and Jessica L. Foulds, “Miracles in Medicine: A Narrative Inquiry Exploring Extraordinary Events in Pediatrics,” Health Science Reports 6, no. 11 (November 8, 2023): e1623, https://doi.org/10.1002/hsr2.1623.
[2] Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2017), 602.
[1] Huynh, Rashid, Foulds.
[2] Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2017), 602.
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