Mhaolain's Child, a Renaissance Thinker in a Post-Modern Culture

Love in Any Language

 

No matter the language, no matter the ethnicity, Christ conquered Death on behalf of all mankind.

Today He Is Suspended

 Today is hung upon the Tree, He who suspended the land in the midst of the waters. A crown of thorns crowns Him, who is the King of Angels. He is wrapped with the purple of mockery, who wrapped the Heavens with clouds. He received beatings, who freed Adam in Jordan. He was transfixed with nails, who is the Bridegroom of the Church. He was pierced with a spear, who is the Son of the Virgin. We worship your Passion, O Christ. Show us also your glorious Resurrection.

Mary Helen, Lazarus, and Me

Last Wednesday morning my Dad’s baby sister, Mary Helen McMillen Waters, was involved in a traumatic car crash. A metaphorical car crash, that is. Instead of driving head-on into a tree, my aunt suffered the horrific damage of a blood clot that slammed into her brain much as the metaphorical car would have slammed into the tree. Her neurosurgical team has carefully outlined the damage inflicted by this run-away missile on the various areas of her brain, offering our family no hope of any recovery. No hope. No response. No return.

The timing of my aunt’s trauma seems surreal. Just last Saturday all her family, myself and my dad included, gathered at her home for a family reunion and a surprise birthday for her, as she had just celebrated her 74th birthday on Thursday, April 7. Usually, she hosts this mega-sized family reunion the last weekend of April. Thank God for the gift of a shift from “usual,” knowing now that she will not see the last weekend of April. Our family voices their prayer that she will be set free from her suffering quickly and that she will celebrate Easter in the presence of Her Lord.

As we pray for my aunt, we are mindful that this weekend we celebrated “Lazarus Saturday” in anticipation of the onset of Holy Week. In the midst of walking through this sorrowful season of my family’s life, we find strength and comfort from the recounting by St. John of the story of Lazarus.

St. John tells us that Jesus loved Lazarus, yet Lazarus, like all mankind, fell ill and died. Lazarus was prepared for burial and laid inside his tomb. Lazarus mouldered in the grip of Death for four days. Then, Jesus arrived, called Lazarus by his name, and commanded him to come out of the domain of Death. St. John doesn’t tell this story from the perspective of Lazarus, so we don’t know what he felt as the bonds of Death slipped away and he stepped back into life. We can only imagine that his steps from abject darkness into glorious light in the presence of Our Lord was stunning to say the least.

It was this act of power and love by Jesus that led the leaders of the Jewish political community to seek His immediate death. After all, how do you debate theology with a man who raises the stinking dead from the grave? And so, they, in what they perceive as their power, set in motion the events that led to Jesus’ torture and death. From their perspective, Jesus was dead and buried. They could move on with their own agenda. However, as He showed when He raised Lazarus from the realms of Death, Jesus had power over death, and three days after His burial He was walking and talking with His followers. Death is Defeated, Christ is Risen.

Though my sweet aunt lingers in this world for a while as her healthy body gives way to the destroyed brain, she, like Lazarus, will one day be called from the grip of Death by her Lord, for He Himself has conquered Death for us all. While I walk this path this year from Lazarus Saturday to the celebration of Our Lord’s glorious resurrection, I am mindful of the ever-present Hand of Death, particularly as it hovers over my darling aunt. But it is no longer a hand bearing fear and despair. Instead, it is the hand that leads us through the door of death into the glorious presence of God. As we learn from the story of Lazarus, we can believe that we walk from the darkness of this world into the splendid brightness that is the Light of the World.

Christ is risen; He is risen indeed.

**The women in the photo above are, from left to right, Mary Helen McMillen Waters (my aunt), Louise Whitsett McMillen (my paternal grandmother), and Ann Eliza Cole Whitsett (my great-grandmother). The two young boys are Richard and Ray Deason, Mary Helen's oldest nephews.