Death makes me cry

I know I'm going to die. Though no doctor has told me that it is eminent, I have not had nagging pains, and I have no real telling family history, I still know that I am going to die. I don't have 60 or 70 years guaranteed. These could be some of the last words I ever type. God doesn't owe me any days, let alone 70 years of them. He has already blessed me with more than I ever deserved. I am grateful for this breath of air and my recent cup of coffee and the memory of the way my wife's hair felt this morning when I took her head in my hands and kissed her before I left the house.

I guess I have been closely connected with death most of my life. Like so many of you, I have stood at the bedside of the person about to breathe their last. I have stood over the beds of loved ones and barely-knowns as their shell lay lifeless. I have been around families grieving suicides, accidental deaths, and the loss of elderly parents. Two years ago my wife and I were called while on vacation and told of the death of a friend our age and asked if I could perform the funeral. In the last 6 months, we have connected weekly with a couple in our church whom we love who lost a child grossly out-of-order. God have mercy!

I hope that these stark words don't feel calloused to you. They don't feel morbid or calloused to me. I'm just saying, I know that death is real, and it's going to happen and it's going to happen to me. The knowledge of this truth makes me constantly want to live in the moment, remember and expect the best in people, and be ready with hope and help when they are ready for it.

This week a friend that I have known for 11 years and her brother were in the water having a great time at a lake. As the winds shifted and the current intensified, the fun quickly disappeared. A boy that she had known for all of 30 minutes was in great distress. Her own brother was in trouble, too. As she tried and fought her way to safety, and her brother literally saved a friend's life, pulling him to safety, the friend whom she had just met surfaced one final time, panic in his eyes. And there was nothing she could do.

Without continuing this story or giving too many of the details, I simply state that death is a terrible reality. It hurts. It breaks our hearts. It always separates. Death is our known enemy, whom we rightfully hate. And when it comes unexpectedly, it brings sorrow and grief untold.

I'm not sure I can bring this post to any neat resolution. I think of Jesus crying at the death of Lazarus, and I guess I'm just glad He was crying, too. Hey, this is not the way it's supposed to be, remember? Death has come as the result of our sin--and it's not a payment, necessary for one of my specific sins, but it's the result of sin in general. So when we see those tear-stained eyes of Jesus as He experiences grief like you and I do, we are amazed that He loves like that.

And if that's not enough, Jesus Himself dies. His heart stopped, His blood drained, and His body was buried. His soul was separated from His body. He gets it.

And then He rose from the dead.

Death makes me cry and Christ makes me joyful. Oh, why do I ever waste time fretting over the things I cannot change? The knowledge of death should have its work in me by God's grace to produce a hatred for sin and seeing things from my perspective all the time. It should place heaven in my heart and make heaven more real with every breath I take.

Death makes me cry and Christ makes me joyful. This is the tension of physical life in this world.