Why the Resurrection is a Good Place to Stand
By The Rev. Clint Wilson, (‘12)
When I was a teenager, I developed a relationship with a group of guys, and we would regularly go on outdoor excursions: from winter backpacking to weekend canoe trips to living off the land for a weekend. We loved daring and risky adventures in the woods. It is a miracle that I am still alive, or that my mom never found out (sorry Mom, if you’re reading this).
One weekend on a canoeing trip with this group of guys, my friend Gabe and I decided to take a canoe down a river rapid that was clearly only safe for experienced kayakers. This particular rapid was very dangerous because it occurred just before a turn in the river. Thus, the force of the cascading water shot you out toward a rock wall that sunk diagonally down into the water, and to get caught there meant you would be held under by the full force of a large river.
The key, therefore, was to make a hard right turn before hitting this rock. Now we were not inexperienced, but we were young and stupid, and so we took the dare. We screamed like cowboys as we rode the canoe through wild rapids and made it through. We approached the bend in the river and the final rapid acted like a slingshot sending us toward this massive rock wall. We paddled furiously hard on the left side in order to turn right, and we almost made it, except the rock caught the very tail end of the canoe and flipped it, lodging it upside down underwater with me underneath it, and thousands of pounds of water pressure holding it in place above me — there was no way I could swim up.
To this day, I remember the visceral feelings of utter terror. I thought, this is really it... I am going to die. I was under for what seemed like minutes, which in reality was about 40 seconds or so, and by a miracle of grace, which I still don’t understand to this day, I was pulled by some kind of cross-current and swam in the only direction I could think to go: downwards. A moment later I broke the surface of the water downstream into the light of day, swam to shore, and after catching my breath and I stood on my own two feet again.
The great mathematician Archimedes, the inventor of the lever, once wrote, “Give me somewhere to stand and I will move the earth.” Whereas death will ultimately take away our place to stand, God gives us sure footing through the dusty, bloody, worn and nail-pierced feet of a Nazarene Carpenter — the same feet that entered the water of the Jordan, and have walked through the open door of the empty tomb. The cross of this God acts as a cosmic lever against all sin and death, and it gives us a place to stand.
This is what baptism and resurrection are all about. Even though all of us will die again, even though none of us will escape death, we can trust that death will not finally drown us. No, we have been drowned in the God who will raise us up on the last day. “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his,” writes St. Paul.
You see, God’s movement has always been toward life, life that plunges through the darkness to the far side of light: downwards, into the crosscurrents of humanity, as we hear in Sacred Scripture. God’s spirit sweeps down over the waters of creation, pressing into them and bringing life. God’s might moves into the waters of the Red Sea and saves a people through water. God’s mercy sees a people thirsting to death, and invites all who thirst, “Come to the water.” God plunges his people into the deep dark waters of baptism, so they might experience the newness of his life.
The task for the present, then, is not to avoid the cross-currents of the demands of faith, but to swim deeper into the living water, to be carried away in the currents of grace.
Then and only then will we find that God’s grace will lift us out again into his newness of life, where he gives us a place to stand.
Think about what this hope means for us and our children in all of our physical interactions in this world—they are not for nothing. This embodied life we live will not all be for nothing.
The Mom and Dad jumping up and down as the skinned-knee-child finally rides his bike. The first kiss with the love of your life. The joy upon hearing the weak cry of your firstborn after many hours of labor. Laying in the grass on a warm day, the wind on your face. The grandpa watching his grandson hit his first baseball. The hand that finally goes limp in yours at the hospital bed. A father giving his daughter’s hand to her beloved. The all-clear cancer report. A miscarriage. The abundant burst of spring flowers. The pain of rehab after an accident. The delight of laughing out loud at the silly antics of your dog.
The tears shed, and the numb body, and the cold wanderer who has suffered a loss so disorienting that there seems to no longer be any place to stand. All of the joys and the sorrows we experience in and through our bodies, they are not all for nothing, because the God who says, “This is my body, given for you,” will give us back our bodies, too.
The Rev. Clint Wilson, (‘12), is rector of St. Francis in the Fields Episcopal Church in Harrods Creek, Kentucky. Before his present role, Clint served Episcopal parishes in Nashville, Tennessee and Denton, Texas. He is married to Theresa and they love spending time outdoors with their son and dog, both of whom require many treats. The preceding article was first published by the Louisville Courier-Journal on April 15, 2022. You may read the original at this link.