Broken

        I sit in church, jotting a grocery list and doing little to conceal the fact that my mind is anywhere but on the sermon.  These days I am quite the church cynic.  I have been in church my whole life, and there are times when the pageantry of Sunday school and announcements and ladies’ Bible studies feels unbearably shallow.  I don’t think church has changed all that much.  It’s me that has changed.  I am in a season in life where everything seems to shifting beneath me, and I find myself groping uncertainly towards the next chapter, searching for a firm place for my soul to stand.  Yet despite my general doubt and angst, every Sunday there is one part of the service that collects all the rough edges of my faith and anchors them in a deep and quiet peace.

The Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you'.

I watch the rows of people in front of me file to the front of the church.  They kneel at the altar rail, hands outstretched out for the bread and wine.  I hear the ancient words recited over and over again.

This is the body of Christ, broken for you.  This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.

Old and young come.  Rich and poor come.  Mothers and babies.  Tiny children, who tug at Father Craig’s sleeve and ask for their turn.  Self-conscious and awkward middle school boys.  People in wheelchairs.  Lifelong churchgoers.  People who started church today.  Cynical, middle-aged women like myself.  Everyone.  Every Sunday the tears start to choke in the back of my throat.  What is it about this scene that gets to me every time?

This is the body of Christ, broken for you.

Broken bodies.  I know about bodies and suffering and blood.  I have earned a living tending human bodies for most of my life.   

The priest moves slowly down the altar rail, and I let my mind wander back through the years.  

Broken bodies.  Broken minds. Broken spirits…

***

“Joe’s on suicide watch because he shot himself in the head,” the nurse told me bluntly outside the door of the hospital room. “We just need you to sit in the room and keep an eye on him.  You don’t have to do anything else.”

I nodded.  I was already drooping with weariness after working my regular shift as a nurse’s aide, but suicide watch was easy money that would pay my bills in nursing school.  All I had to do was stay awake—easy to do with plenty of coffee and the thought of eight hours of overtime pay.

I was a bit nervous about what “shot himself in the head” might look like, but I was a year into nursing school and thought I had seen just about everything by then—wounds, ostomy bags, scary doctors, the morgue.  I was ready for anything, right?  Maybe not.  I don’t think I was quite prepared to spend eight hours in the dark next to a man with wild eyes and his forehead stapled shut.  

He’s a dead ringer for Frankenstein, I thought with a shiver.  Nevertheless, I stuck to the job at hand, quietly watching from the shadows as he babbled, groped the nurses, painted poop on the rails of his bed, and asked me inappropriate questions.  So much for easy money.  I felt sorry for Joe, but, honestly, after a few hours he was driving me crazy.

Joe quieted, though, as the night wore on.   I kept glancing at him, hoping he was sleeping, and worried that he was dying.  He just laid there, staring blankly at the ceiling and occasionally muttering to himself.  Struggling to stay awake, I picked up a textbook and started to read in the glow from the bathroom light. 

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin.   Who said that?  Joe?  

Yes.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures.  He leads me beside the still waters.”

The ancient words rolled through the dark—startlingly cool, soothing, comforting. 

“He restores my soul.  He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”

The words came on, like a healing stream, clear and confident.

      “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me…”

And now I was whispering the words with him, tears slipping down my cheeks. 

I saw Joe’s soul in that moment.  His body lay broken before me in the bed; his mind damaged beyond repair.  Yet his soul rose up—clear, tangible, beautiful, unmarred.

“My cup runs over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

The curtain dropped.  The muttering and agitation returned.  The moment passed, but it stayed with me forever.  It was something I couldn’t explain.  The curtain of a broken body had lifted and I had seen a soul.

***

My mind travels forward a few years to a night shift on labor and delivery...

Around midnight a wailing, incoherent teenage girl walked off the elevator and stumbled to the nurses’ station.  I got her to a bed and managed to decipher that she had walked several miles to get to the hospital.  She was sobbing and moaning through labor pains, curled into a tight ball in the middle of the bed.  

I managed to unwind her enough to see that her pregnant belly was too small, and she gasped out that she was “only six months along”.  Another nurse started an IV, and I gave an injection to stop her contractions.  Slowly the girl’s body relaxed and her sobs quieted.

“Can I help you get cleaned up?” I asked.  I set out a fresh gown on the bed and reached for a warm washcloth.  “Then I’d like to check to see if you’re bleeding or if your cervix is opening, if that’s okay with you.”

She nodded.

I swallowed back tears as I helped her undress.  Dark bruises covered her arms, abdomen, and back.  She winced at my touch and curled around her baby again.

“Who did this to you?” I asked, trying hard to keep the anger out of my voice.

She was quiet.  Everything was quiet.  

And then something happened that I will never forget.  

The girl’s fear was still palpable in the room and the air still trembled with the echo of her moans.  I watched her slowly sit up and saw that her naked, battered body was suddenly tall and regal on her hospital-bed throne.  She turned to look at me and there was fire in her eyes.  She was anger and pure grit and love.  She was a mother.

“He’ll never do it again,” she whispered.  “I’ll rise.”

And I saw the veil of suffering lift, and the soul of a phoenix rose before my eyes.

***

Father Craig continues to work his way along the altar rail.

This is the body of Christ, broken for you.

I look down at the wafer in my hand.  

Christ’s body was broken, abused, wracked in pain, and covered in sweat and blood.  And here we all kneel  before His altar now—broken, suffering, despairing in our own ways—joining our sufferings to His.  We come to see His soul rise from the darkest hell-–beautiful, unmarred, giving us hope and redemption.  We come to see the veil torn away, and be led into the place where only love dwells.

***

“The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.  It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell…”   --Frederick Lehman