Brushes with Life

Last week, I received some very sad news. I learned that a family I knew from a previous parish had passed away very suddenly. The parents and the daughter had gone on a family vacation when they were involved in a car accident just a few miles from home. It was the kind of news that first felt unbelievable and then just left me feeling helplessly sad. As I was praying for them, I realized that I’m sure I have driven on the same stretch of road many times myself. I began to recall the various occasions when I’ve been driving in which, if things had happened just a little differently, I would not be standing here speaking to you today.

I mention all of this not to depress you, but because I imagine we each could share a similar story. From time to time we have experiences that we might call a brush with death – whether driving, or in other ways, via illness or accident – a moment when we realize that things could have turned out very differently. And such experiences remind us, sometimes jarringly so, that our lives are fragile, and that tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us.

Our readings today also address the topic of life and death. In the first reading of the Book of Wisdom, we are assured that death was not a part of God’s plan for human life. It entered our reality instead through sin, through the temptations of the devil and the weakness of human beings. What God wants for his human creatures is what he has always wanted for us: to have life! But why does then does he still permit death? He could, if he chose, simply take it away — he could give all of us immortality. But is merely taking away death a solution to the problem? Is that really dealing with the deeper issue of sin and evil that afflicts the world? If God just made it so that everyone lived forever, would we even want that? What would prevent us from sinning again, from falling back into spiritual death over and over again, forever?

What God needed was a solution to death much deeper than just taking it away. And he found it in sending us his Son, Jesus. Through Him, he created all things and brought them to life, and through him he also shows us his power over death, as we see very clearly in today’s Gospel. Through Jesus, the daughter of Jairus is raised from the dead; through Jesus, the woman in the crowd is healed of her hemorrhage and restored to the fullness of life. To encounter Jesus is to have a brush not with death but with life, with the very Author of Life. And, finally, in his own Death, Jesus achieved what all the other miracles in his life had been leading up toward: he undid the power of death, and opened the way for all persons into new and eternal life. In the Resurrection of Christ, God has at last provided a solution to the sorrow and sin of the world in such a way that life is no longer bound by death or any other earthly power.

George Henry Harlow, The Virtue of Faith (1817)

If God has done all this heavy lifting for us, what does he ask of us? To encounter his Son – to have a brush with his eternal life. Sometimes this might come in prayer, through the powerful consolation of God’s presence when we are feeling weak or of his love when we are feeling wounded. Perhaps it comes to us through the charity of others, a kind word or a helpful hand when we need it most, and our charity toward others when they do. It especially comes in the sacraments: those moments of encounter which are very truly a brush with the Lord’s life. Today’s Gospel reminds us of the importance of approaching every sacrament with faith. When we come forward to receive Holy Communion, we must each time reaffirm our faith in who is actually present; like Jairus, we must receive with great humility and reverence the One who enters under our roof. When we seek the grace of confession (which we should do before receiving Holy Communion if we are conscious of serious sin) then we must recognize in faith that it is truly Christ who is forgiving us – it is he who restores us to life, just as he did the woman in the crowd. We must make sure that we are never like the other members of the crowd, who despite their own needs and desires, failed to truly recognize the power of the One who was in their midst.

Friends, what God wants us for us is what he has always wanted: to have life. In Jesus, he has given us a way to have it to the full – not just earthly life as we know it, but the new and everlasting life of his Son’s Resurrection. It is that life toward which he is drawing us, and for which he permits even the sorrows and tragedies that we face. By faith, we learn to see beyond life’s fragility to recognize … not death, but the Risen Life of Christ, especially our brushes with it in the sacraments. Those sacred encounters are what empower us, sustaining us in the tragic and jarring moments of life, and renewing within us the hope we have for eternal life through his Son. May the gift of faith, renewed each day, bring us one day to full and final union with him.