The Intimacy of Resurrection
I have been very, very slowly making my way through the Gospels since last December. It’s August, and I’ve just now made it to the 17th chapter of Luke. Some of that is due to not reading every day, or reading elsewhere, but a lot of it is the fact that I’ve been reading the little subheadings one at a time.
There are a couple reasons for that, the first being that setting a manageable threshold makes me more likely to be consistent in the daily habit. After years of being daunted by literally any sort of self-imposed commitment, it turns out that I’m actually perfectly capable of being intrinsically motivated. I just have to eat my elephants one bite at a time. And, perhaps even more importantly, I have to be realistic and gracious with myself about those bites. Still, while I’m only reading a few paragraphs a day, I’ve read more scripture for its own sake over the past two years than I did the twenty years proceeding.
The second reason is that I want to give myself time to absorb the details of what I’m reading. I truly believe that God is often best seen in the details, my favorite being that the temple veil was torn from top to bottom when Jesus died. God, in His great love, knew we could not close that gap and chose to come to us. From top, to bottom.
This essay is about another one of those details.
About a month ago, I was reading in Luke while waiting for my order at my “home” coffee shop, when when I got to the account of Jairus’ daughter.
“Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.” (Luke 8:41-42)
As soon as I read her age, tears sprang to my eyes. I saw her so vividly in my mind, the same age as the girls I teach bible study to on Wednesday nights. I saw her long dark hair, her small pale face, her cold, sweaty palms. And I started to cry.
Because when I was eight years old, I tried to drown myself in a frozen pool.
It’s a memory I’ve more or less repressed for years, but it had come up only a few days before in a therapy session. The older I get, the more I realize how severe my suicidal ideation actually was as a child. It’s difficult to trace my motivations, everything was so chaotic and I remember so little of the specifics. Abuse, neglect, a nasty and drawn-out divorce. There was a lot. And I wanted it all to stop.
Not enough, considering I pulled myself back out when the hypothermia I was counting on failed to set in. But there was still something there, deep and raw, that I put away after I walked back into my house, and once that memory returned the something resurfaced in my adult body with the kind of violence only unresolved trauma can produce.
However, considering I had taken up counseling again for the sole purpose of digging up that sort of thing, I suppose I can’t really be mad. The loose ends in my subconscious wouldn’t wait any longer. The Lord was calling me into healing. And sometimes, healing hurts. Like a bone being reset, or a joint being popped back into place, or the blood returning to a tightly knotted muscle. So often the pain we feel is the pressure of God’s hand bringing our spirit back into alignment. And I had been needing that so desperately.
I was down a rabbit hole of trying to grasp the abstraction of His love. Frustrated that the spaces where I felt the most loved, the most valued, and the most known were often a distraction from who God has told me to be; both as a Believer, generally, and as Kyle, specifically. The concept of switching out the concrete for the intangible was one I wrestled with daily. But I wanted to want to want to want to be satisfied. I wanted to want for nothing. I just couldn’t get ahold of how.
He has been so very patient with me. As I’ve fought, and complained, and over and over again gone back to idols of temporary security and connection, the Lord has been gathering up the broken pieces I’d left to gather dust and begun to put them back together.
Here’s the thing about repressed memories. Once one comes up, others follow. There were several additional painful ones of self-harm, but the one that burned the hottest in my chest seemed far more trivial. I remembered playing with my older sister, taking turns pretending to be the “Dead Girl” in our church’s Easter passion play. We were both fixated on the character for years, and in hindsight I finally understand why I'd longed so much to be in her place.
In the blocking of the play, Jairus carries his daughter to Jesus, who takes her and raises her in the air (Yes. Like Simba.) She pops up, and He catches her in His arms.
Jesus held her.
And that was why I started to cry over my marked-up NIV as I read that passage. Because Jesus was on His way, and this little girl was not going to be dead long. The actual events of the miracle were less theatrical than in my old church’s play, but to me they are even more sweet.
“When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child’s father and mother. Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her.
“Stop wailing,” Jesus said. “She is not dead but asleep.”
They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But he took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up.” (Luke 8:51-55)
In Mark's account, he specifies that the Aramaic word Jesus uses to address the girl is talitha. It’s been translated as “my child,” “little girl,” and “daughter.” It’s a pet name.
Jesus, knowing that this little girl’s heart had stopped beating, sat down by her side, held her hand, and said,
“Honey, it’s time to wake up.”
Resurrection is intimate. The Lord is not simply touching His fingertip to ours to give us new life, He is reaching out and wrapping His arms around us. The purpose of sanctification is not to make us morally "good enough", but to pull our hearts closer and closer to His. Because that was the whole point. That we were gone, separated, and we couldn’t get back. We didn’t even want to get back.
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4-5)
This is the purpose of life. We have been given the opportunity to accept this immeasurable gift of relationship with the One Who wants nothing more than to be with us. It’s unfathomable, but it’s true. And it’s worth believing in.