Impossible Things

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, April 9th, 2023:
​The Resurrection of Our Lord

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John
20.1-9

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

How do you believe in the impossible? 
 
This is a question I’ve been asked by many who learn that I am a woman of faith. It often takes people by surprise. I’m known for being a learner, a skeptic, someone who brings a critical eye, a person who’s always asking questions and seeking proof. A friend once pointed out, when I said I didn’t believe in ghosts, that the existence of the God of the universe was a much bigger leap of faith, and she was absolutely right. And yet, I believe in a pregnant virgin, a dead man come back to life, in the miracle of creation itself.
 
Like Peter and John, part of the reason I believe is because I have seen. My conversion took place during Eucharistic Adoration, where I had a vision of Jesus standing before me. But I’ve seen Him elsewhere since – in the vastness of the ocean from the shoreline, in the joy of holding a new baby, in the joy of new converts who simply can’t stop talking about the greatness of God. 
 
Like Peter and John, I also believe in the impossible by the very grace of God. This paradox – I believe in the impossible because He makes it possible – seems to be self-contradictory. Jesus tells us who He is in the scriptures; all the Apostles heard Jesus tell them many times that He must die and rise from the dead. But faith is so much more than just learning. The Apostles knew, but they didn’t believe. Their hearts were closed to the idea that Jesus might leave them, terrified at the prospect of what seemed to be the end.
 
Then: they saw. They understood. They believed. They saw with their own eyes, running to the tomb under their own power. They understood when the Holy Spirit opened their hearts and imaginations, transforming them from simple fishermen into men of wisdom, capable of seeing the fullness of God’s plan for salvation. Our efforts meet God’s grace and transform us from the inside out. 
 
How do we believe in the impossible? Because we meet God – or rather, God bends low to meet us. We think of prayer and seeking as action on our part, but this is better described as reaction – a response to a God who has been reaching out to us from the moment He first imagined us coming into being. 
 
If faith made more sense, I’d trust it much less. If God gave me what I deserved, I would think Him a creature of my own making. It is His impossibility that makes Him believable – I could never, in 14 billion years, come up with the idea of a God of unconditional love, whose grace extends to someone who once hated Him. He is a God who makes the impossible possible, whose love doesn’t wait for me or my perfection. I see, I understand, and I believe. I leap into the arms of impossible love.




Jenna Young

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