Young Man, I Say to You, Arise

March 11, 2021

She handed me a washcloth. She did it without a word, just this look of concern that said so many things all at once. That glance read, “I know. I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t care. Come help me anyways.” It said, “Do it for me. Do it for him. There’s little time.” She wanted help cleaning, but not something simple like a smudge off a window. She wanted me to wash the blood from her son’s dead body. Blood out of gashes that I inflicted.

On the seventh day of my Spiritual Exercises last fall, I found myself in this contemplation, a simple reflection on a Gospel scene, but one that felt so real. I imagined myself taking Jesus down from the Cross and laying his torn, limp body in the arms of his mother. I envisioned the wounds that I myself had carved into his side with my failings and selfish behavior. With my sins. I was sorry, but you can’t just hit “Ctrl + z” on stripes from scourging. What was done was done. I knew it. Dead Jesus knew it. And Mary did too. Still, I wiped his side obediently. The cuts and ribs under the cloth felt more like a washboard than a human body, and I guess it was fitting because by his stripes we’re made clean.

It’s Lent as I write this several months later, but that moment keeps coming back to me as we enter into the penitential themes of the penitential season. An essential part of Christian life will always be conversion from our crooked ways and penance for our sins. If we want to grow, then it’s crucial to know our failings, to see where we’ve messed up, and to understand the pain we've caused Our Lord. But it can’t end there, and it doesn’t start there either.

I stopped wiping after a time, my hand shaking a bit, wet and cold with Messiah’s blood. I looked up at Mary and apologized. I felt I had to. In turn, I apologized to Christ and his Father. I knelt before all of Heaven, acknowledging my failure. The angels and saints knew what I’d done. I had hurt their Lord as well as mine. And that’s when Jesus jumped the gun.

He must have gotten confused. You see, it was day seven of the Exercises, a day dedicated to contemplating the Passion and Death of Christ. The Resurrection wasn’t supposed to come until day eight. So, I was taken by surprise when I felt strong hands grip me from behind, carpenter’s hands on my shoulders. And in front of all the hosts of Heaven, he leaned in close and whispered in my ear what he said to the widow’s son in Nain.

“Young man, I say to you, arise.”

Repentance begins and ends with God’s love and nothing else. And even in that middle part of the story that looks so dark and ugly, his love is there. Focusing in on failure alone is worse than useless. It’s frustrating and could even be destructive. Our eyes, even when we feel we’re drowning in sin’s muck, need to be fixed on the Lord, because his love is the one thing that gives context and meaning to our journey toward conversion. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel, but also the light at the beginning and middle of it. And when we see our lives in this light, conversion and penance take the form of a free response, not mere duty, frustration, or self-pity. He loves me. He will always love me. So, I’ll love back and live in his love.

That’s why Lent is nothing without the Resurrection. Conversion is nothing without the unshakable love of God. Penance is nothing without the Risen Christ who is the face of the Father’s mercy. So, when you're on your knees again, asking forgiveness for the hundredth time, feel his strong hands steady you. Listen as he speaks his love to your heart and invites you into the eighth day. Because the true experience of repentance only comes when we know we're already in his loving arms.

“Young man, I say to you, arise.”

Luke 7:14

“Talitha koum… Little girl, I say to you, arise.”

Mark 5:41