Birth and death are the decisive brackets that enclose human life. They are, however, not a matched set—while birth exudes potential, death brings an immediate conclusion. The Italian playboy Casanova refused to think about death because it threatened to remove him from the stage of history before the show had concluded. In the words of Simone de Beauvoir, death is “the inescapable reversal of our projects.”
This reality is especially vexing in our age of scientific breakthrough and advancement—that we can explode through the earth’s atmosphere and yet find ourselves summarily halted by the mystery of death. Brain scans have replaced mirrors held before one’s mouth, and mortuary cosmetics have superseded pennies in the eyelids, but death’s relentless intrusion continues unabated. Try as we might to avoid it, death awaits all of us, a fact corroborated by children each evening when they kneel beside their beds and pray, “If I should die before I wake, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.” In this way, every nap anticipates death, a foreshadowing of the real thing.
In the Old Testament, Job described death as “the king of terrors,” the terminal event that eventually grabs hold of us (Job 18:14). David confessed that in the face of this terror, “Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me” (Psalm 55:5). For Greek philosophers such as Socrates, death represented the climatic event for which one prepares. In the New Testament, Paul describes death as the “last enemy” to be destroyed (1 Cor. 15:26).
The biblical and Hellenistic traditions agree that while we must prepare our souls to meet the last enemy, such preparation can never be complete. Viral pandemic, stroke, coronary, cancer—death’s tentacles come in various forms, and often when they are least expected. Organic greens, kale chips, and ten thousand steps a day are good habits that may lengthen our days, but only by a little. The intrusive stranger will eventually arrive.
In one of the several funerals in which I have participated during the last two months, I rode in the passenger seat of the hearse (as pastors often do) to the graveside service. Afterwards, I placed a flower upon the coffin, gave hugs to family and friends, and then watched the casket being lowered into the damp ground. Down the gravel road visitors eventually departed, followed by workmen dragging their shovels. I lingered to the end and imagined my friend looking down upon me from heaven. His deliverance had come.
A few days earlier I watched our dear friend Edith die. After days of visiting, keeping vigil at her bedside with family, I arrived on the final day just minutes after she had breathed her last. Experimental drugs, raging temperatures, and sublime occasions of singing hymns with loved ones had finally given way to the inevitable.
In such moments, it’s good to remember that Jesus wept by the graveside of Lazarus. Yes, even when our Lord knew that he was about to enliven his friend, tears nevertheless rolled down his cheeks. Such is the compassion of God, a redemptive love that is the center of this Holy Week.
During our Lord’s earthly ministry, he embodied this love with breathtaking beauty. By healing the sick, comforting the afflicted, multiplying loaves, and proclaiming good news, Jesus showcased the heart of God. But that wasn’t all. He also demonstrated that the future tense of Israel’s hope (“behold, the days are coming)” had become the emphatic present (“the kingdom of God is in your midst”). “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” they cried as Jesus entered Jerusalem (John 12:13). But this acclimation quickly gave way to sorrow. In the words of 19th-century poet Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon,
Alone in deepest agony, while tired apostles slept;
No one to share His vigil—weep with Him as He wept;
Before Him, clearly rising, the Cross, the dying pain,
And sins of hosts unnumbered whose souls He dies to gain.
O Garden of Gethsemane! the God-like lesson, then
Left as a precious token to suff’ring, sorrowing men,
Has breaking hearts oft strengthened, that else, so sharply tried,
Had sunk beneath sin’s burden and in despair had died.
When death—the intrusive stranger—steps into our world to claim its due, we have no human recourse, no defense. The Grim Reaper’s sickle, however, only reaches so far. Yes, all of humanity is exposed to his blade, but there is One who has overcome the sickle. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus removed the Reaper’s claim, robbing death of its sting. While death in this life is indeed final, it’s not the end.
Now, through his shed blood and resurrection, men and women in Christ can have the audacity to look upon caskets with hearts that are simultaneously aching and full of hope, knowing that today’s gray veil of grief will eventually be torn apart by the promised Technicolor explosion of resurrection life.
Chris Castaldo is Lead Pastor of New Covenant Church, Naperville, Illinois, and has authored The Unfinished Reformation: What Unites and Divides Catholics and Protestants after 500 Years (co-written with Gregg Allison), Talking with Catholics about the Gospel: A Guide for Evangelicals, and Holy Ground: Walking with Jesus as a Former Catholic.
