On life and death – an early Easter Meditation

Scott Stearman, April 23, 2000

Paris, France

Have you seen someone die? It’s not a pleasant experience – at least the process is never pleasant, even if the result seems peaceful. Watching life pass from the face of someone you love is a difficult experience. Seeing the warm skin become cold flesh, the active mind become a decaying organism, and the mobile body a lump of matter, is not pleasant. You might find this a morbid topic for Sunday morning, particularly an Easter Sunday morning. While I agree, I still think the death is a good place to start when you want to talk about life. Things are best seen in contrast.

Moreover things are most vivid (that is interesting and relevant) for us, when they are personally applicable. Death touches us all. Our loved ones, and eventually us. We don’t like the thought of it, and the more we think of it the more we don’t like it - which is why we don’t think of it. As much as possible we avoid the topic. Except in church. One of the reasons church is often unpopular.

When someone dies, there is no coming back. I know that there are NDEs (near death experiences), but the very name betrays our real feelings about it and death – it is a NEAR death experience. When one gets closer than near to death - he never comes back. I suppose that this is the worst thing about death. It is irrevocable. It is irreversible. It is irreparable. Death is final. You know that the person who dies, will never live again. You will never hear their voice, see their smile, experience their jokes, or hold their hand. You will never tell them a joke, cook them a meal, or lend them a hand. They have gone to that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, which puzzles the will and, as Hamlet says to himself, makes us bear those ills we have rather than fly to others we know not of.

Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of Jesus, the disciples, and followers of Jesus woke up on Easter morning with a personal realization of death. They would never see Jesus, hear Jesus, walk with Jesus again. He was dead.

Nails had been driven through his hands. Nails into his feet. A spear into his side. He hung their bleeding and suffering until he died.

We Protestants don’t approve of crucifixes. A cross with Jesus left on it is a miss representation we say. It is right, of course, to understand that the cross is truly empty, and that Jesus is no longer there. However, I wonder if our speed to hurry to Sunday we don’t miss the significance of Friday. Our hurry to get Jesus off the cross, and to focus on the resurrection, may cause us to miss the meaning of both events.

I don’t mean a morbid fascination with the blood and guts of the thing, but what it means that Jesus walked willingly to death. What it means that he was willing to lay his life down, rather than to take up arms. What it means that he forgave those nailing his hands to the tree. What it means that he cried out in anguish and wondered why God had forsaken him. What it means that we are saved by his blood, purged by his sacrifice.

I could tell you what it SHOULD mean to you. But possibly showing you my pointed finger wouldn’t be as effective as just showing you my poignant heart. That is, telling you what this means for ME, emotionally and spiritually. Of course, I can’t in a few moments tell you all that the death of Jesus means to me, but I can point at a few things.

1. Jesus was also afraid of death AND of disobedience – But the latter fear overcame the former. Jesus was more afraid of disobeying God, than of death. The fact that he was afraid, make me feel good about my humanity. The fact that obedience to God overcame the fear, challenges me to know to look at my own priorities. There are more important things than the prolongation of my life! In our culture today (with little room for honor or sacrifice) a long life is mistaken for a good life. The significance of your life is not measured in moments, but in decisions. How have you followed God?
2. Jesus died not only willingly, but with pain AND dignity – the latter element won out. We hear a lot these days about death with dignity. I often wonder what people mean by that. The way that we often use the word dignity, contrasts with death in about every way. Dignity has to do with standing straight, being self-sufficient, not manifesting weakness or ignorance. Death challenges all of that. It rips away those facades. How can you take of dignity during death? And how can we think of dignity with on being nailed to a cross in anguish and pain? The answer: Jesus never lost sight of his mission. Up unto the end he was offering forgiveness and love. True dignity is not about self-sufficiency (which is a joke) but about recognizing self-insufficiency, and knowing that your life will end when it is time.
3. Jesus dies with a mixture of frustration (why …God) AND hope (today in paradise) – the latter emotion was victorious. I struggle to be as real as I can in the pulpit, and with what I say. You will struggle in life. Up until the last beat of your heart, you will struggle – and worry – and get anxious – and become frustrated – and wonder – and doubt – and etc. But hope can overcome it all. Jesus experience both anguish and hope on the cross. The hope won out. It can for you and it can for me.
4. Via his example, I can have well in the face of life’s end, have dignity in my death and hope in the face of eternity.