Risen Indeed !

Just before Easter, a little boy wanders from the backyard on their farm. After several days of searching, in which the whole community is involved, his body is found in a nearby creek. His parents are heartbroken, their grief etched on their bewildered faces. Their community grieves with them.

Just before Easter, my daughter's friend, who has three small children, is given only weeks to live. She spends the Easter weekend at home, surrounded by her children and her husband, all saying their farewells, basking in love that should have been distributed over many years and is now concentrated in one weekend. Their church community brings them food and also cleans their house so that the family can be together as much as possible.

Just before Easter, two people my age, whom I have known all my life, pass away. These are not sudden deaths, but rather deaths caused by lingering illness. We all knew that death would be imminent, but when it happened it was still a shock. They will never again hug their grandchildren nor see those yet unborn.

Just before Easter, Jesus visits his dear friends in Bethany: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. The sisters greet him with tears streaming down their faces. Their beloved brother has died. Jesus himself is so moved at their sorrow that he too begins to weep, even though he knows it is not the end of the story. He tries to tell them, but they don't understand.

The Raising of Lazarus (after Rembrandt) by Vincent van Gogh, 1890

(Van Gogh died at age 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.)

Death seems especially threatening when we, as young children, become aware that all of us will die, and again when we get older and realize our days are numbered. In between these times, we live as though death doesn't exist, until someone close to us dies and we are shocked into awareness.

I just finished reading a book written by Sue Klebold, a woman who was especially traumatized when her teenage son committed both murder and suicide. The book is called A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy. Sue's son, Dylan, was one of the two shooters at Columbine High School in 1999 who killed 13 people before ending his own life. Klebold's journey is difficult to read, but it made me aware of how we rally to victims and how we condemn perpetrators and their families.

 

How do we deal with death? In each of the instances I mentioned, the community stands beside those personally affected and grieves with them. Even Sue Klebold, the mother of the perpetrator, had people who stood by her in her darkest hours. Mary and Martha had their community too, but they longed for Jesus; he gave their brother back to them.

I am comforted by a passage in the Gospel of Luke (20.34-38) where Jesus speaks of the afterlife to some Sadducees who tried to trick him. About those who have passed from this life Jesus says, "They will be like angels and cannot die. They are the children of God, because they have risen from death.  . . .  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of the living, not of the dead, for to him all are alive."

Christ has risen, and so we shall rise …

The day will come when there will be a remade universe  . . .  when we can do all things, when we shall be those gods that we are described as being in Scripture. To be sure, it feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early spring it feels like that. Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale. It remains with us to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go on into that spring and that summer.                                                 -- C. S. Lewis (in Watch for the Light)