On a whim…

Mark 16:17–18 NRSV

“And these signs will accompany those who believe…”

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These words are difficult. Very difficult. 

They were spoken on Sunday and I found myself wishing I had not heard them. 

They sound like promises of protection.

As if belief could shield the body from harm.

As if faith could prevent what we know, from experience, is not prevented.

I have lived too much to hear them that way. 

Bodies fail.

Suffering comes.

Prayer does not always turn it aside.

I cannot wish them away. 

So what are we to do with words like these?

Perhaps they are not describing a life without harm. 

Perhaps they are trying—imperfectly—to speak about a life

in which harm is no longer the final authority.

They will pick up serpents.

They will drink what should destroy them.

They will lay hands on the sick.

It reads like invulnerability.

But it may be something else.

It may be the language of people who have come to believe

that even what wounds them

cannot end what has begun.

Not because suffering disappears.

Because the meaning of suffering has changed.

The cross remains.

The wounds remain. 

The body still bears them.

And still—he stands.

If these words promise anything, it is not that we will be spared.

It is that what we endure

does not have the last word.

I cannot say this easily.

I have stood where this was tested.

But I cannot say that suffering is all that remains.

Something resists that conclusion.

Not enough to explain.

Not enough to prove.

Enough that I cannot call it final.

Perhaps that is what these words are reaching for.

Not protection.

But persistence.

Not safety.

I know one thing:

A life cannot be closed by what would destroy it.

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Prayer

God, when suffering speaks as if it is final, teach me to live as though it is not.