transcendence

When was the last time you experienced a moment of transcendence?  You know, some awe-inspiring experience that made you affirm your belief in God.  Maybe it was something beautiful—music or the natural world do that for me.  Or maybe it was an experience with someone else.  Love, friendship, joy.  Transcendence cannot be created, it is not man made.  It happens to us.  It captures us.  Excites us or gives us a deep sense of peace.  It sometimes surprises us.  When it happens you may tear up or laugh or become silent.  You may shout aloud as when the Phillies win, which this year may require transcendence.  If you cannot recall a transcendent moment or if you are not sure if you have had on before, I am sorry.  Again, they are not contrived or man made.  They happen. Like a beautiful sunset when you are in the right place at the right time.  Transcendence is hard to describe to someone else because they just had to be there.  The feeling that it creates cannot be easily reproduced in the telling of the thing. And so telling someone else about it is often counterproductive because, as much as you’d like the other to share the experience, they cannot.  And so the telling can become a downer for both you and the hearer.  Nevertheless, transcendence happens.  I read a story just this week...

Luz Milagros Veron was pronounced dead after a premature birth, put inside a tiny wooden coffin and placed in a morgue refrigerator.Though several doctors had found no vital signs for the Argentine baby, a visit to the morgue from her mother, Analia Boutet, found otherwise, the Associated Press reports.  Boutet had wanted to take a picture of Luz, as a memory. But when she approached the baby and touched her hand, she heard a cry, Veron told CNN. “It's my imagination, it's my imagination,” she said she told herself. It wasn’t. Luz was alive and crying. After 12 hours in a morgue refrigerator.  The baby was born 15 weeks premature.  She has suffered a cardiac arrest and has a serious infection.  She is in critical condition.  An investigation is underway.  Luz Milagro means miracle light in Spanish. 

In Easter week, a dead baby was found alive. Whether she grows up or not, she is a sign of resurrection.  Her story is a resurrection story.  She was dead and found alive.  Hard to believe.  We search for other plausible explanations: physician error being the first one. But what if there is no other explanation?  What if they experienced transcendence? An inexplicable happening that points to divine power?  

To be sure life is not all spring time and roses.  Bad things happen that cause us to have great uncertainty about the goodness of God, God’s power to heal, to save, to change circumstances for the better.  There is economic recession, unemployment, broken relationships and death.  On April 15 we are reminded of the old adage; there are only two things one can be certain of in this life: death and taxes.  I think that a lot of us have grown skeptical of ancient, supernatural stories and mythologies.  Our deep skepticism is realized in the loss of rituals in our culture that mark moments of transcendence.  For us, transcendence is watching Bubba Watson win the Masters with a bit of Magic on the 10^th fairway by knocking a ball 50 yards out of the woods and onto the green to win. At least it was for my dad who claims he picked Bubba on day one. 

Thomas, who gets a bad rap, is found in the bible precisely because his story is so plausible and real.  A story such as his about a total realist, a skeptic, becoming convinced that Jesus was raised is both an embarrassment to the early Christian community and a gift to the later church.  An embarrassment because not every one of Jesus’ disciples immediately cheered when they heard the news.  Thomas could not take this kind of news on faith, but required proof, evidence, something tangible to base their story on. It was not enough for him that others claimed to have seen him.  He needed verification.  And why not?  Wouldn’t you want to authenticate such a story?  A crucified man was raised from the dead after three days and has joined his followers in a locked room.  Apparently, Jesus has a physical body that can move through solid walls and locked doors.  I have seen, in my life, the great illusionist David Copperfield perform such a stunt.  He walked through the great wall of China when I was a kid.  But, although I don’t know how he does it, I know it is an illusion.  A visual trick that creates an appearance of something happen that cannot happen. Jesus is not a first century illusionist though.  The gospel writer insists that Jesus appears to them, disappears from them, walks through walls but has clear physical signs of crucifixion on his body.  In this way they declare that Jesus is the same person, but with some different properties.  Resurrection properties.  His body is not confined or constrained to the same physical limits that our bodies are confined to.   Jesus is a transcendent reality, inspiring awe and faith in the impossible.  The others experienced transcendencewhen they encountered Jesus. Thomas was not there. When he does experience Jesus, he is moved to declare that Jesus is “My Lord and My God”.  

There is deep uncertainty in life.  Things happen that cause us to question both the goodness of God and of humanity.  We wonder why and we get no clear answers.  We hope for change that does not come.  We wait until hope begins to fail.  Reality falls short of expectation. Religious movements and Churches that claim to have the answers to life’s persistent questions are not honest.  There is mystery and things we do not understand, things on which we cannot pass final judgment.  The resurrection of Jesus is such a mystery.  A mystery that inspires awe. A moment of transcendence in the midst of chaos.  The Genesis story begins that way; God creating order and beauty out of formless chaos. That is the bible's declaration about God:  God brings light to dark places, life to dead creatures, peace and forgiveness to human conflict and strife.  In every breath, God is giving life to this dying world.  We see it.    

Christ’s people look for the resurrection of the dead.  We have been given eyes to see a God-filled world. According to the gospel of John, we have not seen and yet come to believe.  And now what we believe informs how we see. We see with the eyes of faith.  We see God present in sunsets and in rainstorms, in newborn babies and in the dying elderly.  We see God in the hearts of those who generously give with compassion and in the faces of those who need relief from suffering.  We see God in the crosses of life and in the ways in which people overcome their fears to embrace God’s purposes. Most of all we see God in Christ; in broken bread and cups of wine, in humble servants and the humbly served.  We see Christ in each other, in the humanity of one another.   There is transcendence and holiness and sacredness in everyday life. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.  The risen Jesus comes among us.  See him.  Receive His peace.  Amen.