How Disability Changed What Easter Means to My Family

I didn't know I was biased against people with disabilities when our daughter was diagnosed with Down syndrome. Looking into my baby's eyes and hearing the words "intellectual disability" and "developmental delay" brought up a host of emotions I never expected. There is grief. Shame. There is fear.

I had no friends with disabilities. I enjoy academic learning. I had a sense of purpose and value in the world because of efficiency, productivity, and measurable accomplishments. I assumed that a life defined by slower development than typical kids, with greater vulnerability and more obvious needs, meant a life of lesser value and uncertain purpose.

American culture, with its emphasis on individual achievement, contributed to my assumptions about a hierarchy of human worth. My faith did the same. When I was a student at the seminary, I was told that disability was a problem that needed to be fixed.

I recoiled from the thought that two men were praying thatPenny would be healed of this evil Down syndrome. When people with Down syndrome were called angels, I wondered if the sentiment betrayed an inability to see children with flaws and blessings. I began to realize thatPenny was not broken as much as I was, but other Christians talked about her need for healing as if it were different from mine.

When I looked at the stories of Jesus in the Bible, I saw more examples of people with disabilities being reduced to problems. Jesus heals people. The blind can't see. The hearers. The walk was not very good. In a second. Their bodies were broken and needed to be repaired by a miracle worker.

The word Jesus uses to say that a blind man has been healed is the same word he uses to say that a woman has been forgiven. The word describes a man who has given away half of his possessions after he has had a disease. The root word in these cases is sozo. It is implied that understanding of healing has to do with our entire beings.

I noticed that healing is not just for individuals, it is also for everyone. Jesus heals a man with a withered hand and a woman who has been bleeding for twelve years. He makes sure that they present themselves to the religious authorities so that they can be reintegrated into society. Was the problem in the bodies of the excluded individuals caused by these actions? Was the problem in the communities that rejected them?

This is a question that should be considered now. Families with children with special needs are twice as likely to never go to church as families with normal kids. More than half of special needs parents say that their child has been excluded from church. A majority of parents of children with disabilities say that the most helpful support they could find in a church community is a welcoming attitude towards people with disabilities. I wonder if that is the way Jesus saw it.

I equate health with pain-free bodies. The biblical writers did not have a concept of health, as we understand it in the industrialized western world. The closest approximation to health is the Hebrew word shalom. He writes that the absence of illness, disease, or disability is not Shalm. It has to do with the presence of God. The first thing that heals is connecting people to God.

Jesus healings can be understood as a way to bring spiritual and communal restoration, as well as a way to restore wholeness and health within individual persons. The blind, the physically disabled, and the poor are some of the people who will celebrate together at God's table. Their bodies are not changed before they are welcomed. They are at the banquet. The healing comes from belonging and celebrating together.

The stories of Jesus' death and resurrection show that healings are not just expressions of ability. Nancy Eisland has written a book called The Disabled God, in which she states that Jesus experiences disfigurement and disability while dying on a cross. According to the writers of the New Testament, Jesus has scars from his past that he carries with him when he is resurrected. When he conquers death, disability is not erased. The scars are still there. Jesus points to his scars to help his followers understand who he is. The resurrected God is defined by disability.

I wondered if Down syndrome was a symptom of sin in the world as I held her in the hospital. I said that was sin. Defect or disorder is the word we use for it.

My mother was gentle when she said that the only sin she sees inPenny's birth is how we respond to her.

The social model of disability is what Mom was offering me. She didn't know that she was affirming a truth that I would eventually come to understand. She knew that her granddaughter was not the product of sin but of God. Her words made me think about what it means to know Jesus and what it means to be a human. Her words made me realize that all of us need God's healing and that Jesus anticipates our need to believe in ourselves and belong to a community.

On Good Friday and Easter, we celebrate a God who has made us well not by fixing our bodies, but by affirming the goodness of our bodies in all their limitations. We look to a God who heals us, not by changing us, but by inviting us to know our belovedness.

God welcomes us all to the table as we are.

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