Thoughts on the Resurrection

Sometimes skeptics ask me if I believe in the literal Resurrection– that Jesus’ body actually came back to life on the third day after he was executed. Here’s the honest truth: I’m autistic, and I have trouble believing things I haven’t seen. I used to look at the Resurrection as figurative, symbolic of the idea that death is not the end, and that the Spirit of Christ is still among us even after his death. (Why did the people who had traveled with Jesus for three years fail to recognize him at the tomb, John 20:14, and on the road to Emmaus, Luke 24:15-16, for example?)

Lately, though, I’m inclined to take the Resurrection more literally. Why? Let me tell you a story…

About ten years ago, when we were raising goats and making cheese, we had a goat named Wind. She was one of the first two goats we bought, and she was a real character. But because of her breeding (part Nigerian), she tended to have kids that were too big for her. The first year, she threw a kid we named Luna, who was born with her front legs all curled up. She started life walking on her elbows. We splinted her, and her legs straightened out, and she grew up to be the strongest goat in the yard.

The second year, Wind got toxemia. Her legs swelled up to where she couldn’t even stand. We made a sling to keep her from having to lie on the ground all the time, but it was clear she wasn’t doing well. As her due date approached, in consultation with our vet, we decided to induce labor so she could (hopefully) deliver her kids and get healthy again. She went into labor, but she didn’t dilate. The contractions weakened her, and we finally decided we had to take stronger measures. About midnight one night, I began massaging her cervix according to directions my wife found on the internet. By 4:00 am my fingers were exhausted, but her cervix had finally dilated enough for the first kid to come out. It was a boy, and he was born alive and breathing, but died within minutes. This was our first loss, and it hurt–especially before dawn after several sleepless nights.

The second kid was born soon after, a girl, but she wasn’t breathing. Something came over me, and I somehow knew “This one will live.” I rubbed her down, swung her around by her feet to clear her lungs, and then breathed into her nose and mouth.

She began breathing.

We “bumped” Wind to see if she had any more kids in her, but didn’t feel any. Wind wasn’t producing milk, so we put one of the other recent mothers in the milking stand so the baby could nurse and get colostrum. Then we went to bed.

The next night, Wind developed a high fever. The vet came out and discovered that she did indeed have one more kid in her, but it was dead and had gone septic. She removed the dead kid– our second loss– and treated Wind for infection. We tended Wind night and day, but she was just too weak to recover. As her body temperature dropped, I lay down next to her with a blanket over us both, but there was nothing to be done. At about 3:00 am, we called the vet and told her, “We’re losing her!” Ten minutes later, we called the vet and told her to go back t sleep. Wind was gone, having died in our arms.

But her one kid, the one born not breathing, survived. We named her Brisa (“little wind”). She grew up to be the best milker we ever had, producing twice as much as our next best milker. At eight years old, she’s still going strong, and is now living at Red Acre Farm, where I’m told she delivered two healthy kids this year. (Luna is also there with her.)

What does this have to do with the Resurrection?

Any goat farmer will tell you that a kid not breathing isn’t going to survive. But Brisa did.

One day it occurred to me: If God can do that through my hands, who am I to say what he can’t do?

I still have trouble believing in what I haven’t seen. But I’m no longer going to say it didn’t happen.