WLSU: After The Thing

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I wonder what happened the next time Lazarus got a bad cough.

You remember Lazarus. He was one of Jesus’ best friends. He wasn’t even listed as a disciple – just a guy that Jesus loved so much they had to mention him. And when Lazarus died, his sisters yelled at Jesus and Jesus let them, and he cried in front of everyone. And then Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead – literally. One of the most famous stories in the Bible, a classic.

We don’t hear much from Lazarus after he’s brought back. He shows up at one of Jesus’ dinner parties, but that’s about it. And sometimes I wonder what happened the next time he got sick. What if the cough lasted more than a couple days, if it got worse instead of better, did he panic? Did he worry about getting so sick again, about dying again? Jesus had already ascended by then. Did Lazarus wonder how Jesus would help him now?

Or the woman I wrote about a few weeks ago – the one who had menstruated for 12 years straight: She touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and the bleeding stopped. She was healed. But the next month rolled around, and her period began again. Was she terrified for the whole week, wondering if she really had been healed? When this miracle occurred, Jesus was on his way to another miracle: The daughter of the local synagogue president was dying. By the time Jesus got to her, she had died, and he raised her from the dead too. Her family had seen her die. How did they handle it the next time she was sick? If that was my daughter and she even sneezed, I’d want to pretend I was ok, but I wouldn’t be.

And of course, someday that little girl grew up and died again. Lazarus had to die again too.

Why does this bother me? It bothers me.

Oh, I think it bothers me because in some ways it means the miracles of Jesus are momentary. The miracles are memorable, to be sure, and they transform a person’s life, no question. But that person still has to get sick again. They have to die someday. And in the meantime, after the miracle, they still have to pay bills and put food in mouths and have misunderstandings and disagreements and basically it turns out that life goes on. Until it doesn’t. Do miracles have a shelf life?

We read these stories of memorable moments. We call them defining. In many ways they are. The miracles define the lives of those who experience them. And the curses – the illnesses, and deaths of which Jesus cures people – they are themselves definitive. The bleeding woman, the dying child, the dead man. Is this life defined? A collection of maladies and miracles, of blessings and curses – bullet points and highlights, the things found in an obituary.

But my life is filled with so many unmemorable moments – daily, hourly, I am doing things the details of which get forgotten almost immediately. It’s the things that happens after the thing happens.

I have written and preached and spoken repeatedly about the day my father died. I have detailed at length my conversion experience on a seaside trail in Italy. I have gleaned my parents’ divorce, my wedding day, and the birth of my children for sermon material. A collection of curses and miracles that I call definitive. But right now I am thinking about picking my kids up from school.

The days I’ve done this bleed into one another, my memory of them is an amalgamation. I don’t remember any specific time I locked eyes with one of my children as they made their way out of the school building, any specific time they broke into a run toward me, any specific time they tried to knock me down with a hug. But it has happened so many times, so consistently, so unmemorably, that it has begun to define me. They play on the playground after school, and I stand around in a loose circle with other parents and we have utterly forgettable conversations that end up building the most important friendships of my adult life. The sheer mundanity of them forges a deep significance.

The miracle of childbirth occurred. Now what? This. This is what. Daily life. I tend to think of faith as something that shows up in the midst of the curse, at the moment of miracle. But faithfulness is often unnoticeable, the beating of your heart when you’re sitting still and forgot it was there but it was doing the work of life all the same.

Last Sunday we baptized some kids and it was great. We’ll baptize some more this Sunday. These little squeaking, cherubs decked in white coo and squawk and sometimes scream when doused with water in the name of the Triune God. Everyone smiles and claps, and they should: they’ve witnessed an adoption, the christening of a new saint, a miracle in plain sight. This moment is definitive. I believe that. But how we help raise these kids, how we show up for them, how we spend endless forgettable moments with them and allow ourselves to be shaped by the unimaginably beautiful mundanity of life together – that is definitive too.

The recent election was a defining moment in our country’s life. I don’t mean that as hyperbole. Donald Trump is heading back to the Oval Office promising sweeping change – the disassembling of long-established government bodies, the redefining of international relationships, the forced deportation of millions of people. This nation is divided almost exactly in half on whether his election is a miracle or a curse. I have my guesses. Time will tell.

This moment is memorable. It will be a part of shaping and defining us. But so will countless unmentioned moments over the next four years. How and where and when we show up for each other, how we choose to listen to each other, talk with each other, forgive each other. Looking back on it, we will not remember all the ways we were faithful, all the ways we were loved, the sheer importance of the ways we did normal things.

I do not believe miracles have a shelf life. They are big loud blessings that remind us to look for the little quiet blessings. Jesus isn’t missing in action. Jesus is barreling toward us like a kid on a playground, standing around with us like a friend in the loose circle. Look for Jesus outside of the miracles. Look for love in the boring everydayness of your living and dying.