I know we’re past Easter 2022, but the following words from J.S. Park about Easter and resurrection keep coming to mind for me:
“For so many of us,
there is simply no resurrection.
It can be painful to see in Scripture how the sick were healed and the dead were raised—
all while so many of my patients remain still under sheets, their families deciding when to disconnect the machines.
Sometimes it doesn’t work out.
Sometimes there is no closure.
Only tension, unresolved.
Only prayers unheard.
Only a stone unrolled.
I have prayed hard for miracles. I have seen families weep on their knees or shake their loved ones begging them to wake up. I have said before: I have never seen a miracle. Not in seven years. I have seen the cruelty of a seemingly indifferent and haphazard universe. Babies born to die. Abusive husbands walk free. The cancer wins. The transplant fails. At a deathbed, the family does not always unite, but fights. Death does not always bring people together. At times it reveals trauma hidden for too long.
In these rooms, I am in no mood to believe “He is risen.” I wonder too often if God listens.
I wish I could tell you that pain has meaning or it makes us better or there is some sort of victory in the end. A note of hope. But it doesn’t always go that way. I really wish it did.
I can only say I have found no closure—
only those who remain closest
when the tomb will not open.
I try to believe the rumor that Sunday is coming. But Fridays are long. Fridays can last a lifetime.
There, I have found Mary near and present,
Salome here with spices,
Joseph with his linens,
Nicodemus with his aloe.
They found me.
Nothing fixed. Nothing resolved. Nothing made alive. Only those close who stayed alongside. I know I am lucky. So many still alone, I can only hope we each find people to call home. I am grateful you are here, in this long eclipse, when Sunday is far. This storm may not pass. I hope you will stay too.”
When I was still an evangelical and a conservative, these words would have really shaken me. Believing in a literal, physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus – and always having hope & joy because “Sunday is coming” and “He is risen” – was such a core part of not only my faith, but really my whole identity.
Yet now, on the eve of my 24th birthday, these words feel comforting, validating. I feel solidarity and empathy from these words.
I shared in my last post about a tweet I see which encouraged discussion on how people’s lives would (or wouldn’t) change if Jesus’ resurrection could definitively be proven false. I’d definitely recommend looking that up if you haven’t seen it. I think so many people had really thought-provoking answers, both those who said a lot would change and those who said that there would be little to no changes.
For me, as a disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent person, I’ve rarely seen miracles.
It isn’t that I believe miracles never have happened or never do happen. It isn’t that I think they’re impossible or close myself off to all possibilities of miracles.
But they seem random, inconsistent, driven by cruelty and not love. In the worst case scenarios, people endure awful things that no one should ever have to go through, but no miracles happen; in the best case scenarios, people endure awful things but experience a miracle that stops or reverses what happened, but they still carry the trauma of what happened as well as the knowledge of what could have been. Either way, miracles don’t seem to be truly rooted in love.
I believe God is love. Above all else, I fully believe that loving myself, loving others, and loving God are all intertwined and all important. I certainly fail and am not always good at it, but I really do try to live my life with love as my motivation for what I say and do (as well as what I don’t say or do).
I’m not sure I believe in an all-powerful God, though. To me, there is no way I can fathom an all-good, endlessly-loving deity who is also all-powerful when so many terrible things continue to happen. The attacks in Ukraine, anti-LGBTQIA+ legislature, the ongoing pandemic, etc. For me, prayer has mostly become a means of me lamenting to God about these horrible things – not so much praying for miracles, but simply expressing my grief and aching over these tragedies.
As such, I found J.S. Park’s words comforting. Sometimes, there is no resurrection. Sometimes, there is no hope or redemption or celebration or joy. Sometimes, there are no silver linings or bright sides.
And in the midst of all of that which too often feels lacking – there are still people who will stay, who will not flinch or run away from people’s pain, who will empathize as I believe God empathizes.
It’s certainly not always easy or convenient to have this theology. But this – the practice of staying, of waiting, of compassionately sitting with hurting people while our Fridays and Saturdays feel endless, and Sunday feels like it will never come – this feels far more real and true to the experiences of myself and many other people. It certainly isn’t anywhere near as joyful or triumphant as the theology that proudly and quickly proclaims “He is risen” and “Sunday is coming”. But sometimes, like in the movie Inside Out, what we need isn’t to cheer up or think positively but to sit with people in their & our pain. Sometimes what we need is simply to validate the awful things we go through and not to rush into resurrection.
It’s not easy, but it is holy, sacred, good work to just sit with those who so desperately long for miracles, for joy, for hope, for celebration that may not ever arrive. It is good to empathize. It is good to be kind and gentle with ourselves and with others as we so deeply want to see Sunday and joy and resurrection and hope come, but understand that it may not come for a long while – or that it may not ever come at all.
I pray that we would find each other, that we would tenderly hold one another, that we would see ourselves and others with compassion, that we would not rush anyone – including our own beloved selves – into resurrection when it feels so far away or maybe even nonexistent and impossible. I pray that we would not run away from pain (our own or that of others), but that we would learn and continue learning to sit with each other while we ache and grieve, and that this sitting with wouldn’t be conditional.
Through Her Eyes 