Somehow

There are things in life that we cannot explain.  And the only word we can use is “somehow.”  Like this: Your body is made up of 7 billion billion billion atoms.  That’s 7 octillion.  In and of themselves, atoms are not alive.  They are just lifeless matter, mindless particles.  But somehow they come together in a fantastic puzzle that constitute a living, breathing, YOU. 
​ 
As a college student I was tall, skinny, and awkward.  I was largely clueless to female attention.  And somehow Bobbi found me interesting.  Somehow she talked to me.  Somehow she said “yes” when I asked her to marry me.  Somehow!  It’s a word you use when there is no logical explanation.  A word that admits mystery and miracle.  It’s a word of faith and hope.

We live in an era that places the highest confidence on the rational and explainable.  It is as if the only things that are true are the things that can be explained.  

• “There are no mysteries.  If we just research and study enough, we can solve any problem.”  
• “If we just get the right diagnosis, there’s a pill that can cure that.”  
• “If you just follow the right parenting philosophy, you won’t mess up your kids.”  
• Even in the church, a pastor might say, “If you just do these spiritual step-by-steps, you’ll be blessed.”  

But for all of our knowledge, mysteries remain.  We still have unanswered questions.  

• What happens when science reaches its limit and there is no explanation?  
• What happens when medicine doesn’t work and you still suffer?  
• What happens when you do all the right things as a parent, and your kids still struggle?  
• What happens when you work hard your whole life but you’re still not happy?  
• What happens when you did your best to be a good Christian and God still seems silent?

Some women went to the gravesite.  There were so many questions.  “Why did he die, and why did he die this way?  Like a criminal?  How could such a good man deserve an end like this?  What will we do next?  Is there a “next?”  As they got closer to the cemetery, they had another more practical question.  “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” (Mark 16:3)  

Then - somehow! - the stone was rolled away and the door was open.  Then, somehow, there was a young man in a white robe who said to them, “Do not be alarmed.  You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has risen; he is not here.”  (16:6).   Somehow!

Mark's gospel has an odd ending: “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”  (Mark 16:8)  Scholars believe this is the last line of Mark’s gospel.  It’s the strangest ending of the four gospels because it’s not neat and tidy.  Instead of “happily ever after,” it’s “trembling and bewilderment.”  

Verse eight is really important because it tells us that the Christian life is often unresolved.  Even after the resurrection, they were afraid and bewildered.  You too are left with questions. Logic and reason can’t get you out of it.  There is no clear answer or rational way forward.  How often as a Christian are you just “trembling and bewildered”?

At graveside committal services, I lead the casket from the hearse to the hole in the ground.  And the pallbearers place it on a lift above the plot.  We huddle around the body one last time before it is buried.  And I look the family in the eye and say the most preposterous thing.  “This is not the end.  God will raise this body from the ground.”  And I speak the words of Jesus standing over a dead body, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”  

It is irrational to say this in a yard full of headstones.  Yet it’s precisely at the cemetery that Christianity gives answer to the unexplainable mystery we call death.  As the body is laid in the cold ground, somehow we say, “I will rise.”  With an instrument of death we call a cross, somehow there is life.  At the tomb, somehow Christ is risen.  Somehow happens in the cemetery, at the very moment of impossibility.   

In your life, you have unresolved questions.  Impossible challenges where it seems there will never be a change.  You say, “God, I don’t understand!”  Augustine, a 4th century church father, once wrote, 

“Why wonder that you do not understand?  For if you understand, it is not God.”  ​

There is much in Christianity that can be explained and understood, but the greatest things are mystery and miracle.  And for that, the only thing we can say is “somehow.”  

Somehow, God so loved this rebellious race of humans that he chose to become one. 
​Somehow, a brutal instrument of death means life.  
Somehow, a dead man came back to life again.  
Somehow, he is currently the world-wide King, with dominion over all powers and principalities.  
Somehow, the God of the universe knows you.  Forgives you.  Calls you his child.  
Somehow, he uses you to do his will and work in the world.   

Somehow - after all this is over -  the One that you have believed by faith, you will see by sight with your own eyes.  You will hear his voice on your very eardrums.  Jesus will say, “Behold I make all things new.”   It is beyond our explanation and understanding, against all reason and logic.  All we can say is, “Somehow Christ is risen.”  And “somehow” still happens today.    ​