A Mortal Mystery: Is Death Our End?

All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
    Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
    stricken for the transgression of my people.
~ Isaiah 53:6-8 NRSV

When is the last time you had a rousing discussion about death?

Death is a subject that is often not something one brings up in pleasant company. Its not exactly the "go-to" subject to start an everyday conversation.

In fact, it is a subject that we like to encase in large concrete walls so that we do not have to look at it. 

To confront death is to recognize one's own mortality, and doing so also causing us to confess the stark reality that we will all die one day. Period. 

And death sometimes shows up when you least expect it.

Encountering the Mystery

When I was 12, I was happy with the way that the world was working. I was floating along and getting ready to enter into junior high school, which was a BIG DEAL. That meant that I was, like, almost an adult, right? 

Although, admittedly, I thought that I was an adult the second that I no longer qualified for the kids meal discounts at the local Western Sizzlin' restaurant. So yeah, I was an "adult."

My desire to be an "adult," or to be a "big kid" might seem silly now. Yet, as I reflect upon it, I have realized that this desire was fulfilled when I was much too young and in a massively devastating way. 

I was forced to confront the mystery of death when my father, in his early 50s, died suddenly of a heart attack.

I handled it as well as anyone would handle the sudden death of a loved one at age 12. 

Poorly.

I had to struggle and deal with the fact that my father was gone. There was nothing that I could do, nothing that I could say, nothing that I could wish for that would ever bring my dad back.

And this was exactly where I needed to be.

Entering the Mystery

When death surrounds us as heavily as it does this week, it is difficult to maintain any semblance of hope. The bombing of the airport in Brussels hangs heavily over the world as we ask the question we responsibly ask in tragic situations such as this: "Why?"

And perhaps this is when the church begins to attempt to answer this "why" question, yet perhaps not in a satisfying way.

Because death is a mystery and this mystery of death is intimately tied in with what the church celebrates this week. 

This week is Holy Week, the last week of Lent. This weekend, we remember what is the low point of all of human history in the crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. And yet, in the coming Sunday (or the Great Vigil on Saturday if you are hardcore), we break forth in crazy celebration of Our Lord rising victorious over what is seemingly the end of all humanity: death itself.

As St. Paul said in his letter to the Romans, 

"For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God." ~ Romans 6:5-10 NRSV

In this poignant passage about the baptism of believers in Our Lord, St. Paul shows us that when Jesus rose from the dead, death's chains were broken. No longer is death the end of humanity. Rather, Our Lord transforms the end of humanity into its new beginning: through our death in Christ, we now enter into the everlasting of life.

Respecting the Mystery

The reality of Our Lord's power over death brings divine comfort to all those who have lost loved ones. After all, the Gospel of Our Lord is that death no longer is our end.

Yet, at the same time, we live in tension. Does the spiritual reality of victory over death make me feel better about the fact that my dad died? To tell the truth: no. Not really.

And why is that?

Because as followers and believers in Our Lord, we hold two beliefs in tension. 

One: Christ has freed us from the power of death. 

and

Two: Death (at least, physical death) is still awaiting each of us. 

Why is reality like this? Beats me.

And that is why we need this Holy Week. We need this weekend of acknowledging this divine "already" and "not yet" of our faith in God. We bow down, ashamed of the crucifixion, and yet are raised up to glory in the resurrection.

In all of the messy "in-between"-ness of life, perhaps it is good that this mystery remains:

That Death is our end. 
And therefore, it is also our beginning.