“Risking Resurrection”
John 20:1-20
Easter Story
PAUMC
3/23/08
July 11, 2005 twin boys, Nicholas and Nathanial Draper were born into the world. Their proud parents were Nicole and Michael Draper. The joy of birth turned quickly to fear and desperation. The two boys were born with weak hearts that give out at any time. They were told that both boys needed a transplant within 3-6 months or they would die. They were flown to the UCLA hospital in LA.
Nate had a brain bleed so that eliminated him from eligibility, so Nick would be the first to receive a transplant, should a donor heart become available. After 7 months of waiting, there was still no heart.
Elizabeth Vargas from 20/20 pointed out to them: “You are aware that as you wait for a heart for Nick, another baby someplace else has to die in order for your baby to be saved.” Little did they know that the heart for Nick was beating in the chest of a baby boy in Florida.
Earlier that year, in Panama City, FL, Tracy and Russel York gave birth to baby Jordan. He was the joy of their lives. On a morning last February, they all left the house – Mariah, for school; Russel to his job as a cook, and Tracy to her waitress job. The grandparents watched Jordan.
About two hours later, Baby Jordan suffocated beneath a pillow. Hours later they were told he was brain dead, that only life support was keeping him alive - and they were faced with a decision about organ donation. It was Valentines Day.
The York’s decided to take him off life support and donate his organs. The pain of their decision was met with the excitement of the Draper family, in the 7th month of waiting. Dr. Mark Plunkett delivers the news and tells them that somebody’s baby boy, named Jordan, had died and that his heart is a match.
On Feb 16th Baby Jordan’s heart was implanted in the chest of Nick. The surgeon took out the badly damaged and misshapen heart and replaced it with a perfectly healthy heart. After some difficulty of the heart functioning, the new heart finally beat on it’s own and Nick would live. A very long time later, Nick was finally able to leave the hospital, but not without meeting Jordan’s parents.
Donor and recipient families are usually kept confidential. But Tracy York had a need to know and connect with the family whose child now has Jordan’s heart. She had heard someone at the hospital mention the heart was going to UCLA so she searched newspaper stories and found the Draper’s story. The Drapers also had a need to meet the family whose unimaginable generosity saved their child.
Imagine meeting the family whose son saved your own. Imagine holding the baby who now has your infant’s heart. The meeting of these two families was filled with emotion. “I just put my hand on his chest and felt Jordan’s heart beat, and that was enough.” Tracy said.
As I watched this story, I am awed at how death and life can meet and bring new life, and I am awed at the power by which it bound these two families together. The closing photo is of the two families together, all mingled in with each other, with Jordan’s mom holding Nick.
Life, death and then life again – it’s all part of the human story and it is part of our story of faith. We have the life of Jesus – the One in whom we see God most clearly revealed – who lived this life of compassion, whose heart was touched by the suffering of others, especially the suffering caused by the social injustices of his day. His compassion moved him to stand against the brutal systems of domination of his day – the Roman government, and religious leadership. His stand for justice infuriated these powers enough that he was killed a torturous death on a cross.
With his death came the death of the hopes of his disciples and other followers. Jesus’ crucifixion brought fear and sorrow, and they hid behind locked doors – until they were called forth from their own tomb by the risen Christ, until they experienced the power of resurrection in their own lives. And we see these scared weak disciples becoming bold as they took up the cross of Christ – this mission of compassion. We see the early Christian church standing with the oppressed and marginalized, taking care of all who were in need and boldly proclaiming that Jesus, the risen Christ is their Savior, Lord of Lords, King of Kings and Prince of peace – all titles reserved for the emperor of Rome, Caesar himself. To proclaim anyone else as king was to risk death.
Resurrection is a risk. It always involves death – and in this death denying pain avoiding culture – this is hard to face. This is reflected in how we participate in the faith history that is relived each year during Holy Week. On Palm Sunday and Easter attendance very in every church in America. But attendance significantly drops on the services where we focus on the Passion of Christ. Smaller churches often do combined services on Maundy Thurs & Good Friday because of this. But there is no resurrection if there is no death first. Resurrection is always risk.
Although the phrase, ‘born again,’ is only stated once in scripture, the notion of it is expressed everywhere – especially through the language of dying and rising, death and resurrection. This is utterly central to Christianity. It is about the process of transformation. To be born again involves death and resurrection. It means dying to an old way of being and being born into a new way of being; dying to an old identity and being born into a new identity centered in the sacred, the Spirit, in Christ, in God. Death and resurrection, dying and rising are metaphor for personal transformation.
On the night of the first Easter, the disciples were huddled together behind a locked door. What were they afraid of? I don't think they were just worried that those who killed Jesus would kill them as well. The fear went deeper. Maybe they didn't want to deal with the scorn of those who knew they had failed. They had even failed at protecting Jesus. In spite of all their earlier bravado, they were afraid of the cross. And ashamed.
Like the disciples, we try to hide when we're ashamed. We keep our hearts locked up tightly because we know the truth about ourselves, and the truth is that we are not what we want to be, or even what we pretend to be.
Nothing is more crippling to our souls than working at hiding shame. We lock up more and more doors, sealing off more and more rooms of the heart to prevent our true selves from being discovered. We think we are keeping the world out, but in fact we are keeping ourselves locked in.
In the Gospels, Jesus’ command is to deny oneself, take up the cross and follow. Following Jesus is equated with taking up the cross, which to them was a symbol of execution, of death. What Jesus lived for brought him to his death. This understanding of Jesus leads us to understand salvation not only as something that happens in the after life, but as the transformational process of growing in love of God and neighbor, and what this transformational process calls us to live for.
Rev. Mitri Rehab is a Palestinian Christian who is the pastor of Easter Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, a Palestinian City surrounded by a wall built by the Israeli’s that cuts his people off from the basics in life that provide daily sustenance. Their suffering is great. He says this about resurrection: “My people have no trouble believing in life after death. What they do have trouble believing in is life before death.” Resurrection also has to do with this life here on earth.
The resurrection power of the living Christ is about what he lived for - the reign of God on earth, which meant – as the prophets said – the mighty shall be brought low and the poor raised up. In other words, a society where all have enough to eat, where no one is oppressed, where violence is not the way we solve problems, where love and justice dictate the actions of the human community.
Brief video clip shown here about resurrection hope
(from the Living the Questions Study Series)
Experiencing resurrection in our lives is ultimately about receiving a new heart, like baby Nick did. As the heart of baby Jordan now beats inside of Nick, so does God’s heart beat inside of us as resurrection people, as God’s love has been poured out for us and in us, and as we pour out our lives for others, as the lifeblood of God, which is love moves us to compassion, moves us to forgiveness, moves us to face our darkness, we will know beyond a doubt that Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.