Death Hurts
On learning lessons in the dark
This morning at church, we sang a song that you might recognize. It included the words:
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Can you imagine?
Can you imagine being a disciple of Jesus on the day that he was nailed to the cross? You’ve been by his side as he’s been surrounded by people, leaning on every word and deed that he did. You’ve witnessed miracles and seen people healed. Just recently, you experienced this Jesus on a donkey, waddling his way into the city, surrounded by people who were shouting, “Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!” You were there as he washed your feet and compared the bread and wine to his body and blood.
I’ve often thought about what it would be like to be a disciple of Jesus during that time. This is our time! The revolt is going to start any day now, and we’ll be freed from the clutches of the Roman empire! Just imagine the excitement, the confusion, the pure exhilaration of feeling so loved by another person who just washed your disgusting feet. This man, this Jesus, has changed your life.
Then, just like that, he’s gone. Dead.
From one side of the emotional spectrum to the other in just a matter of hours.
Sure, Jesus talked about being raised from the dead. He talked about the suffering he’d have to endure, but when you see someone just die right in front of you, all those promises quickly fade into the background. Death hurts.
Over the years, I’ve attended a lot of Good Friday services. Most services have a healthy dose of “heaviness” to them, but they mostly end with, “Yeah, today is sad…but don’t forget! Sunday, he will rise again!”
Which typically completely ruins the atmosphere that they spent the past hour creating.
And I get it; that’s where we get our hope from. That’s the light at the end of the tunnel. AND I think we too often skip over the pain and suffering that exists in the darkness of that tunnel.
There’s something about facing those deep, dark feelings that enable us to increase our capacity to be vulnerable. To feel and empathize with another person, to love. There’s something about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable that can deepen the foundation on which we stand. There’s something about getting completely shattered that shows us what’s in our power to control and what we can surrender to.
Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book Learning to Walk in the Dark, says:
As many years as I have been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air. Sitting deep in the heart of the Organ Cave, I let this sink in: new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.
Time and time again in my life, I’ve learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light. It’s in the cloak of darkness that I’ve learned things that have saved my life. It’s through this darkness that has shown me that I need it as much as I need the light.