Looking at Death this Week
Let’s not look away
I was the kid who was scared of everything.
Dogs? Afraid. Swimming? Afraid. Riding a bike? Afraid. Darkness? Afraid. Heights? Afraid. Most of these fears were outgrown as I aged. (A few were added.) Many of the fears gave way to experience, confidence, and a knowing realization that I could handle more than I initially thought I could.
After the birth of my first son, my fear of darkness returned. His birth had been preceded by weeks of panic attacks, often at night. It was not shocking that the nights began to feel endless – minutes ticking by slowly…slowly…slowly. Even when I could fade off to sleep, I woke up in a panicked terror. Night became the enemy. Each afternoon, I’d wander out onto my front porch to soak in the last few rays of sunshine. And I’d feel the fear rising in my chest. As the sun would begin to set, I would feel the familiar suffocation. I would cry tears of hopelessness. The night was coming again and I could do nothing to stop it.
During Jesus’ final night on earth, he underwent considerably worse emotional terror: “Being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44, NIV). He had chosen the cross. Death was in his direct path and Jesus could not, would not look away.
If you have ever been in a place where you simultaneously feared death and wished for death, let me say that I know the depth of pain and agony you’ve endured. And, moreover, Jesus knows. The triune God experienced a supernatural crack within His eternal, unbroken fellowship when Jesus breathed His last on the cross and gave up His spirit. His death brought upon the world a darkness which will never be rivaled, an anguish unknown from all eternity past.
We spend our lives avoiding death. But the Gospel writers challenge us to look anyway. Why? Because it is by looking into the face of Jesus’ death that we find access to resurrection life.
Let me urge you to sit in the darkness of this week. Cry. Mourn. Get angry. Feel the weight of the world’s injustice. Feel the sting of your own sin. Look at Jesus’ crucified body and let His untimely and cruel death bring about repentance once again.
“It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last” (Luke 23:44-46).