Easter and my kidney transplant

A debt I can never repay: Easter came to me today with greater meaning. Similar to the gift post at Christmas.

This year, it’s arriving inside a body that works in ways it hadn’t in years. Last year, I received a kidney, given by a stranger I may never know, which is doing its job somewhere beneath a six-inch scar on my abdomen. And my friend Jeff, who stepped forward and said ‘yes’ when my name was on the line, donated to someone else through a cross–match chain so that I could receive a kidney from someone he may never know.

Four people.
Two strangers.
One paired kidney donor chain.

And I can’t repay either of them.

There’s a concept that’s easy to say in church and harder to live inside: grace. The idea that something was given to you that you didn’t earn, couldn’t earn, and will never be able to match. I’ve heard it my whole life in church services and Bible studies. I understood it. Well, I thought I did.

Then, I needed a kidney.

My unknown donor, Donor 1, in the language of the transplant world, matched me on blood type and on the genetic markers that matter for long-term success. They said ‘yes’ to a chain, which meant saying yes to a stranger. They didn’t know my name. They didn’t know about my eighteen months on peritoneal dialysis, about the nights tethered to a cycler machine, about the exhaustion that doesn’t show up in blood test results. They merely showed up and gave. Like Jeff, they too did it so a friend or family member could receive a needed kidney.

Jeff knew me. He came forward knowing exactly who I was and what I needed. I still remember the evening he showed up at my door, sat down with me, and steered the conversation to the big news he had been holding onto. He waited until the moment was right to tell me he was a donor match for me and someone else because of his blood type. In the end, his kidney went to a stranger so that the stranger’s donor could give to me.

I cannot pay either of them back. There is no known currency for what they did.

Today, that sounds familiar.

The Easter story is, at its core, the story of a gift no one can repay. And it wasn’t a surprise to God. Hundreds of years before the cross, the prophet Isaiah described it with an accuracy that should stop us in our tracks. Isaiah 53:5 says: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (NIV)

Written roughly 700 years before Jesus walked into Jerusalem. Before the nails, the tomb, and Easter morning. God had already written the story. Similarly, God had written The Divine Timing of the Kidney Transplant before my kidneys started to fail.

Then, in Romans 5:8, Paul explains why: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (NIV)

While we were still sinners. Not after we cleaned ourselves up. Not after we earned it. Before we asked. Before we were ready.

Or: While I was still exhausted and frightened and running out of time, the gift arrived anyway. John 15:13 puts it plainly: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (NIV)

Jeff laid down part of his own body for a friend. My unknown donor did the same for a stranger. Jesus did it for all of us, before any of us asked. And the response to these gifts is the same: you can’t earn your way back to even. You can only receive.

The Board of Hope, which is what the kidney transplant team at Nebraska Medicine called the matching board in their office, had done what it does best: it connected one person’s willingness to another person’s need, and because of that connection, lives are forever changed.

The Easter story is the original Board of Hope. A cross that looked like an ending became the bridge to everything. A tomb that was sealed became empty. And the resurrection that followed wasn’t only for the disciples and others standing there in shock on that Easter morning. It was for everyone who would ever need it.

That included me.

This Easter, I’m carrying two debts I will never settle. One to a donor whose name I don’t know. One to a friend who gave a piece of himself to a stranger.

And one older, deeper debt to a God who wrote the story 700 years in advance and showed up anyway, before I ever thought to ask.

This song came on my Spotify as I was writing this blog post:
“Love Song” by Third Day

“I know that you don’t understand the fullness of My love
How I died upon the cross for your sins
And I know you don’t realize how much that I gave you
But I promise, I would do it all again“

Related Posts:
The Gift
Receiving the Gift
My Kidney Journey Through Scripture

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