It was mere coincidence, but it had never happened in such a way in my presence before. It was with the “small group” – five of us, including me and my wife, all of us people who had attended a Catholic retreat at one time or another who now met for discussions of theological literature. This time, the meeting was at a Mexican restaurant, “El Patron,” which had a large room, huge tables, and normally few customers, a perfect place for us to discuss Biblical considerations. This time there were several customers, with one large family group at a very large table just in front of ours, but the space in the place was so great that we could still use the names of God without too much offense. I had ordered the Chile Relleno. It was not as good as last time, but still good enough. My wife had gotten something that looked better than mine, as usual, but I was not all that concerned with the food, because we talked of the book while we ate, Jesus Shock, and the book had been my choice.
The name had been well chosen, for the author, Peter Kreeft, never allowed a dull moment. Bam, bam, his words hit like a hammer, true and shocking in their simplicity and effect, at least as far as I was concerned. I had taken up the author’s style and was trying to convince the others, if they needed convincing, that the heart of Jesus Shock, according to Kreeft, could be summed up in one phrase: that Jesus was not only of the past, but alive and active now. The shock could be as startling as seeing a dead relative walking into your living room. Jesus was active NOW and, if you allowed it, He would prove that He was active. Stunning and frightening, as it must have been for those who witnessed Jesus raise people from the dead, and then, finally, Himself. The works of God could be terrifying, as the old prophets knew.
Then the old man of the family in front of us began to gag, expressed mostly in short, weak coughing. “Dad,” said a 30-ish woman, “are you OK?” “He’s not OK” said another, and then the woman again, “He’s not responding!” He slumped over the table, the choking mostly gone, and after a few more efforts to get him to sit up, the adults at the table quickly pulled away the chairs and lay him on the floor of the restaurant, right beside our table. “Call 911!” someone said, probably needlessly, as a half dozen iPhones were already in the air, and then the daughter took over. She obviously had had some training, as she checked for a pulse, and then leaned down to feel for breath. “Nothing!” One of the woman in our group was a physical therapist and joined them. I sat with the others as a useless spectator.
It went on like that. The daughter pumped the chest to get the heart to beat, while I watched the man’s eyes. At first they were closed, but then they opened, and there was nothing there – no response, no recognition. The man was dead, or so I thought, and I tastelessly said so in a side whisper to the guy next to me. The police arrived and brought out a defibulator. A robotic female voice sprang forth from the device to tell them what to do: “Apply the device. Remove and step back. Do not touch the patient…you may now touch the patient.” It went on like that until it became clear to me that not only was the man dead, but that it was ridiculous to go on with this frenzy. I thought I could feel his spirit, and his annoyance: “Leave me alone! The worst is over. It’s time for me to leave!” I became annoyed as well for him, or so I imagined, as the fire department arrived. Still, no response.
It was then that I searched for that feeling again, that irrefutable feeling that my friend and I had had in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan when we happened upon a car accident on the lone ribbon of road that cut deep through the state forest just south of Pictured Rocks National Seashore. We could both feel that death was there. He (she) was dark and ominous. It had just happened, but already three others were there on the scene, and it was obvious that they felt him too. I wrote about it in the essay “Dark Angel” (in my book, Beneath the Turning Stars). The presence had been so clear, so unmistakable, that even a day later, another friend noticed that we were marked with a darkness, as if we carried a physical blemish.
So I knew that feeling well and searched for it, thinking it must be there, but it was not. There may have been annoyance (or maybe that was only me) but there was no angel of death. I found that curious. I remained glued to the action, just another rubber-necker. He had just died, but there was no sign of it.
As I pondered this, the fire department guy declared that he had gotten a pulse. Then the man started to breath. And then the doctor arrived and gave him some kind of shot, and then the ambulance came, and, and … he was alive. He had been “dead” for several minutes, but not really. He seemed to have left his body, but something knew better; something knew that he would not die. Maybe he would that night, or maybe he would have one hell of a scary tale to tell for years to come, but for then he was alive – critical, but alive.
“Making it real” is what I had numbly said at the time, which for many there might have been intimately true. Things happen not only for one person, but for many people in many ways, all of them valuable lessons if we allow them to be. The daughter must have gone through a slew of emotions about her dad, about the good things he had done and the bad, about his life and the closeness of his death. The wife, who had wept during his temporary death, must have had other emotions, and other memories. The physical therapist in our group had an elderly father who had been ill, and this must have made her think, too; and the father of the guy I had whispered to was so near to death that it would come less than a week later, only a few days from this writing. There were also the grandkids of the man on the floor, who had been hustled out after granddad had become unresponsive; how would this affect their lives? And then there was me; I had been hung up on the spirit of death. I had been puzzled at his absence. I was no longer.
There had been one unifying factor, however. Death. It had not come, but no matter; its shadow had overlain us all, exposing seams and wrinkles within that we had not noticed, or had not even known of, before. Death is an enormous shock, impossible for the god of our egos, for our own little eternity, in its finality and its apparent darkness. It cannot be but it is. And it was with this, death, that Jesus had caused even greater shock, not because he had caused it or died himself, but because he had reversed it. He had brought others, and then himself, from the dead, proving to be the God above all gods with dominion over even that dark angel. The story of His life, death, and return to life cannot be real, no; but neither can death.
What is the most startling thing of all is that we fear the return from the dead even more than death. Zombies. Ghosts. The half-rotten hand from the grave. Death is supposed to be quiet, done once and then out of sight and mind. ‘Jesus shock’ is that which takes us by the neck and says, “No! It is not final! Look to me, for I am still and forever alive even after death!” We shrink from this, terrified, and make of it only wishful thinking, but who can wish for something so horrifying? And yet we do not want to die and do not really, really believe that we will die, not absolutely and forever.
Jesus is our worst nightmare, a living hand from the grave, but also our greatest hope, our dearest dream. We want to believe and do not, all at once, just as we believe in death and do not, all at once. But if He lives, He leaves a mark, as all living things do. Could this mark only be in our dreams, or a trace on our soul, or is He stamped so broadly into everything that we cannot even see Him, just as we cannot grasp what this death is that is so universally stamped into life? Is ‘Jesus shock’ the startling realization the He, that God, is everywhere and working not only all around us, but within us, just as death is? Is He the broad counter to death, as He said He was, always at work in broad daylight, and we, so ignorant that all we can see are the obscure shadows?
We might say ‘no’ and be left to the gnawing terror of these shadows, or we might say ‘yes’ and be left to the terror of eternal life. All creatures who live in the dark shy from the light, but all creatures want to live, by design. We are left as spectators in a restaurant, making of death what we will, but finally, making of it only death. It becomes our decision to live in terror of its shadow, or to face the even greater terror of coming into the light. Light which is there and always has been, its hand not cold and dead but, if it is beyond death, luminescent and warm, the mystery of death solved.
It was mere coincidence, but it had never happened in such a way in my presence before. It was with the “small group” – five of us, including me and my wife, all of us people who had attended a Catholic retreat at one time or another who now met for discussions of theological literature. This time, the meeting was at a Mexican restaurant, “El Patron,” which had a large room, huge tables, and normally few customers, a perfect place for us to discuss Biblical considerations. This time there were several customers, with one large family group at a very large table just in front of ours, but the space in the place was so great that we could still use the names of God without too much offense. I had ordered the Chile Relleno. It was not as good as last time, but still good enough. My wife had gotten something that looked better than mine, as usual, but I was not all that concerned with the food, because we talked of the book while we ate, Jesus Shock, and the book had been my choice.
The name had been well chosen, for the author, Peter Kreeft, never allowed a dull moment. Bam, bam, his words hit like a hammer, true and shocking in their simplicity and effect, at least as far as I was concerned. I had taken up the author’s style and was trying to convince the others, if they needed convincing, that the heart of Jesus Shock, according to Kreeft, could be summed up in one phrase: that Jesus was not only of the past, but alive and active now. The shock could be as startling as seeing a dead relative walking into your living room. Jesus was active NOW and, if you allowed it, He would prove that He was active. Stunning and frightening, as it must have been for those who witnessed Jesus raise people from the dead, and then, finally, Himself. The works of God could be terrifying, as the old prophets knew.
Then the old man of the family in front of us began to gag, expressed mostly in short, weak coughing. “Dad,” said a 30-ish woman, “are you OK?” “He’s not OK” said another, and then the woman again, “He’s not responding!” He slumped over the table, the choking mostly gone, and after a few more efforts to get him to sit up, the adults at the table quickly pulled away the chairs and lay him on the floor of the restaurant, right beside our table. “Call 911!” someone said, probably needlessly, as a half dozen iPhones were already in the air, and then the daughter took over. She obviously had had some training, as she checked for a pulse, and then leaned down to feel for breath. “Nothing!” One of the woman in our group was a physical therapist and joined them. I sat with the others as a useless spectator.
It went on like that. The daughter pumped the chest to get the heart to beat, while I watched the man’s eyes. At first they were closed, but then they opened, and there was nothing there – no response, no recognition. The man was dead, or so I thought, and I tastelessly said so in a side whisper to the guy next to me. The police arrived and brought out a defibulator. A robotic female voice sprang forth from the device to tell them what to do: “Apply the device. Remove and step back. Do not touch the patient…you may now touch the patient.” It went on like that until it became clear to me that not only was the man dead, but that it was ridiculous to go on with this frenzy. I thought I could feel his spirit, and his annoyance: “Leave me alone! The worst is over. It’s time for me to leave!” I became annoyed as well for him, or so I imagined, as the fire department arrived. Still, no response.
It was then that I searched for that feeling again, that irrefutable feeling that my friend and I had had in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan when we happened upon a car accident on the lone ribbon of road that cut deep through the state forest just south of Pictured Rocks National Seashore. We could both feel that death was there. He (she) was dark and ominous. It had just happened, but already three others were there on the scene, and it was obvious that they felt him too. I wrote about it in the essay “Dark Angel” (in my book, Beneath the Turning Stars). The presence had been so clear, so unmistakable, that even a day later, another friend noticed that we were marked with a darkness, as if we carried a physical blemish.
So I knew that feeling well and searched for it, thinking it must be there, but it was not. There may have been annoyance (or maybe that was only me) but there was no angel of death. I found that curious. I remained glued to the action, just another rubber-necker. He had just died, but there was no sign of it.
As I pondered this, the fire department guy declared that he had gotten a pulse. Then the man started to breath. And then the doctor arrived and gave him some kind of shot, and then the ambulance came, and, and … he was alive. He had been “dead” for several minutes, but not really. He seemed to have left his body, but something knew better; something knew that he would not die. Maybe he would that night, or maybe he would have one hell of a scary tale to tell for years to come, but for then he was alive – critical, but alive.
“Making it real” is what I had numbly said at the time, which for many there might have been intimately true. Things happen not only for one person, but for many people in many ways, all of them valuable lessons if we allow them to be. The daughter must have gone through a slew of emotions about her dad, about the good things he had done and the bad, about his life and the closeness of his death. The wife, who had wept during his temporary death, must have had other emotions, and other memories. The physical therapist in our group had an elderly father who had been ill, and this must have made her think, too; and the father of the guy I had whispered to was so near to death that it would come less than a week later, only a few days from this writing. There were also the grandkids of the man on the floor, who had been hustled out after granddad had become unresponsive; how would this affect their lives? And then there was me; I had been hung up on the spirit of death. I had been puzzled at his absence. I was no longer.
There had been one unifying factor, however. Death. It had not come, but no matter; its shadow had overlain us all, exposing seams and wrinkles within that we had not noticed, or had not even known of, before. Death is an enormous shock, impossible for the god of our egos, for our own little eternity, in its finality and its apparent darkness. It cannot be but it is. And it was with this, death, that Jesus had caused even greater shock, not because he had caused it or died himself, but because he had reversed it. He had brought others, and then himself, from the dead, proving to be the God above all gods with dominion over even that dark angel. The story of His life, death, and return to life cannot be real, no; but neither can death.
What is the most startling thing of all is that we fear the return from the dead even more than death. Zombies. Ghosts. The half-rotten hand from the grave. Death is supposed to be quiet, done once and then out of sight and mind. ‘Jesus shock’ is that which takes us by the neck and says, “No! It is not final! Look to me, for I am still and forever alive even after death!” We shrink from this, terrified, and make of it only wishful thinking, but who can wish for something so horrifying? And yet we do not want to die and do not really, really believe that we will die, not absolutely and forever.
Jesus is our worst nightmare, a living hand from the grave, but also our greatest hope, our dearest dream. We want to believe and do not, all at once, just as we believe in death and do not, all at once. But if He lives, He leaves a mark, as all living things do. Could this mark only be in our dreams, or a trace on our soul, or is He stamped so broadly into everything that we cannot even see Him, just as we cannot grasp what this death is that is so universally stamped into life? Is ‘Jesus shock’ the startling realization the He, that God, is everywhere and working not only all around us, but within us, just as death is? Is He the broad counter to death, as He said He was, always at work in broad daylight, and we, so ignorant that all we can see are the obscure shadows?
We might say ‘no’ and be left to the gnawing terror of these shadows, or we might say ‘yes’ and be left to the terror of eternal life. All creatures who live in the dark shy from the light, but all creatures want to live, by design. We are left as spectators in a restaurant, making of death what we will, but finally, making of it only death. It becomes our decision to live in terror of its shadow, or to face the even greater terror of coming into the light. Light which is there and always has been, its hand not cold and dead but, if it is beyond death, luminescent and warm, the mystery of death solved.
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