In early March, I received news that the six-month old grandson of a couple in the church where I serve as Minister of Pastoral Care was being taken to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. On the outside, little Everette seemed like any normal six-month old, but local doctors here in Greenville realized that something was amiss with his heart.

After a few days of testing, doctors concluded that he had a heart disorder called dilated cardiomyopathy, a disease which, according to an American Heart Association online article, usually begins in the left ventricle as “the heart muscle begins to dilate, meaning it stretches and becomes thinner. Consequently, the inside of the chamber enlarges. The problem often spreads to the right ventricle and then to the atria…As the heart chambers dilate, the heart muscle doesn’t contract normally and cannot pump blood very well. As the heart becomes weaker heart failure can occur.”

Initially the doctors thought that they would try a medication regimen, which when added to the passage of time, might help deal with the illness. But just a few days later the doctors approached Everette’s mom and dad with a new conclusion—the only way to save Everette’s life would be for him to undergo a heart transplant. After much thought and prayer, his mother and father agreed to pursue the transplant. 

When I first heard the news that Everette’s life could only be saved by receiving a transplant, my first emotional reactions were for little Everette who at six months of age will undergo such a challenging surgery and recovery—all with an inability to understand what is happening to him. Then I thought about Everette’s parents having to make such a gut-wrenching decision, and then about the two sets of grandparents watching this unfold for their children and their grandchild. From listening to his grandparents in our church, I realize how much their faith in God’s goodness, grace, mercy and lovingkindness is sustaining them.

And then it hit me. In order for Everette to live, another little child would have to be at the point of death. That child would have to be sick with no hope whatsoever, and his grieving parents would have to make the decision to let him go and to allow his heart to be entered into a donor heart pool. What an agonizing decision to have to make in a moment of heart shattering grief.

The story of Everette and his yet-to-be-determined donor reminds me that this Sunday in the Christian world is Easter. Easter is our commemoration of another moment in history when not one, but many, have been given the chance to live because another person has died. Our annual observance of Easter celebrates that moment when the God-man Jesus Christ voluntarily allowed Himself to be executed by crucifixion on a Roman cross to pay the sin debt every person owes to God, but cannot himself pay. Easter celebrates that moment three days later when God the Father raised His Son from the dead, demonstrating thereby His power to give to man life eternal in a paradise called Heaven. Easter is a celebration of the fact that any individual who chooses to believe in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, from that moment on will be moved from spiritual death to spiritual life forever. Easter is the celebration of the fact that we get to live because He loved us enough to die on our behalf.

Not too many days before He died on that Roman cross, Jesus said these words to a friend whose brother had died four days earlier. “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26 NASB) It is Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection which makes His claim true.

In closing I want to ask you to pray for Everette and his family. Everette is now in a vaccination protocol intended to reduce the chances of his body rejecting his transplanted heart. After that, a matching donor heart will be sought. I also ask you to pray for the heart donor’s family. Heartbreak awaits for them. 

Happy Easter!