“I Held His Heart in My Hands!”
I was worried about Tony who is a little boy in our congregation. His grandmother told me the Good Friday service really upset him. The somber, dark tone. The terrible and frightening narrative of what happened to Jesus that day. The meanness, the brutality – a story of murder and betrayal. It was all too much, and Tony was very, very sad. I wonder if the service impacted you in a similar way.
So I told someone special about Tony and the Good Friday service. I told the Easter bunny about Tony and asked the Easter bunny if he could keep an eye out for him on Easter morning – because the Easter bunny told me he was going to visit this church on Easter morning. (FYI – the Easter bunny did visit Holy Trinity on Easter day!)
Well, later on when the Easter bunny and I met up for coffee after worship on Dunkin Donuts he had some news to share. He told me Tony had the biggest grin on his face on Easter morning – especially when the Easter bunny told the kids that he had just run into Jesus in the woods – literally ran right into him because the Easter bunny was doing what bunnies do – hopping around minding their own business when Jesus ran right into him so excited, so happy, so thrilled to be alive. He shouted at the Easter bunny while jumping up and down – look, look, I’m alive. And you know what, it made Tony happy. I was relieved.
Like Thomas in our gospel text this morning – don’t you just sometimes want actual proof that will make you smile or that will make your draw drop – evidence that Jesus is alive – that there is a God. That there is some sort of wonderful spirit making wonderful things happen – even miracles. I think Tony wanted that proof – or even needed that proof – after the trauma of Good Friday – and same goes with Thomas, the disciple. It seems Thomas wanted that proof – or even needed that proof – after the horrific events of Good Friday. The same goes with you and me. Every once in a while we just need some evident – don’t we?
So this morning I’d like to share a story with you that might do just that – that might just make your jaw drop or at least it did mine. It’s one of those moments – and I know you’ve had such moments or you probably wouldn’t be here that causes you to know – just know there is a God – causes you to know – just know that Jesus is alive and well – causes you to know – just know that the Holy Spirit is up to something that is really, really good. It’s just like Thomas touching the wound on Jesus’ hand where a nail was pounded in. It’s just like Thomas touching the wound on Jesus’s side where the sword pierced through.
Now just to be clear, this story means an awful lot to me because of its impact on me. So I’ve shared this story in many different contexts which means you may have heard it before – and I’ll probably keep on telling this story because it is such a powerful Easter story. It was as if I was Thomas touching the wounds of Jesus hand and sides. It’s a true story about a former patient of mine when I served as a hospital chaplain. His name is Neil and I did his permission to share his very story.
As a patient in the hospital, Neil wanted communion at his bedside once a week, so he and I had just finished sharing Holy Communion. This was at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City where I served as a chaplain for 10 years before moving to Boston. I was the chaplain to the heart transplant patients and their families, and Neil was one of those patients – a 30-year-old man with a badly diseased heart. He had lived a rough and tough life and I met him when he began his three-month hospital stay while he waited for a new heart – his only chance at not dying at such a young age.
Just the night before our most recent visit/ while he was sleeping/ he coded, his heart stopped beating, and he woke up with a nurse doing chest compressions on him. Time was running out. It was a close call. Neil was shaken up. He was scared. When I got there in the morning he asked for prayer and Holy Communion.
After some conversation I left Neil’s room to makes some notes in his medical chart. As I was writing I received a page from Jody – one of the heart transplant coordinators. She knew Neil and I had had many meaningful conversations over the last three months so she asked me, “Would you like to be the one to tell Neil that a new heart has just arrived for him?” I was stunned, shocked, elated, filled with joy, and of course, immediately said, “yes”. Someone out there, someone’s heart-broken family was indeed paying it forward by donating their loved one’s organs.
I found Neil walking down the hallway with a nurse. I walked next to him, put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Neil, I have wonderful news. We just got word there is heart for you and it is a perfect match.” Neil’s jaw dropped. He didn’t say a word. He put on a big smile. “You’re joking with me, right?” “No, no. It’s true. Your new heart is here. The gift has arrived!”
The page from Jody with the good news of the new heart came within minutes right after Neil and I shared prayer and communion. And it was the morning after Neil coded and was within moments of losing his life. The spirit was up to something.
Well, Neil’s wonderful news set into motion a flurry of activity for the next 24 hours that was simply breathtaking. Miraculous for Neil and thrilling and humbling for me. You see, I was on the list of those who wanted to observe a heart transplant in the operating room, and it just so happened that my name came up for Neil’s transplant! I was stunned because I had grown to care deeply for Neil and his family. Jody, the transplant coordinator asked me if I wanted to observe Neil’s transplant. With some reluctance, because I had come to know him so well, I said yes.
Before surgery I gathered with Neil and his family to pray together and share hugs and tears as he headed into surgery. I told Neil and his family that I would be right there every step of the way, and so for the next 8 hours I stood still in one spot on a step stool over his shoulder so I could look down into his chest as this miracle unfolded before my very eyes.
Two moments of that eight hours stand out for me. The first moment came after they opened up his chest. It was as I watched Neil’s diseased heart being cut away and removed from his cavernous chest cavity. It was a slow, painstaking process as his life was literally turned over to the heart-lung machine. Snip after snip after snip until the heart was completely cut away from his body. With one last snip, the surgeon removed the heart.
The surgeon then handed it to a nurse who, from across the room, asked me if I would like to see it up close. I didn’t say yes or no. Rather, I got down from the stool, walked over to the nurse who not only showed me the heart but without taking time to ask me – no time for me to consent, she placed Neil’s heart into my hands. And Neil’s heart was still moving. It was quivering – slightly beating – still!
As I cradled his heart in my hands, it stopped. Lifeless. This heart, Neil’s heart, this broken heart – dead. Neil’s heart, diseased, sick, weak, lifeless…died in my hands. His heart died in my hands! To say I was completely overwhelmed does not even come close. This must have been how Tony felt on Good Friday.
How did his heart get this way? How do any of us get a broken heart? How do any of us go down the path of such darkness, such defeat? Who did this to him? What happened to him? What did Neil do to himself to end up with a broken heart? Those are the kind of questions Neil and I wrestled with during those months of waiting.
Then the other moment that stands out from that incredible experience of witnessing a heart transplant. The new heart, the donor heart, the heart that was a life-saving gift of a family paying it forward – arrived in a red and white cooler – the kind you would carry soda or beer in to a picnic. Once I saw the heart I could immediately tell that it was a young heart, a healthy heart, less than half the size of Neil’s dead heart, much smaller, and then through another slow, painstaking process, the surgeon methodically sewed this new, young heart into Neil’s chest.
After hours of sewing, the blood flow was re-directed from the heart lung machine to Neil’s body. And at that very moment, when blood begins to flow into and through this new heart – I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. The new heart began to beat all by itself. No need of an electrical shock from paddles. No need of stimulation. Rather – the moment Neil’s blood flowed into the new heart – it came to life – beating hard and strong – beat after beat after beat after beat. Neil’s sewn-up chest was moving up and down. He was breathing. His new heart was beating! He was alive. It was Easter morning!
It is Easter morning! The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed! Amen