And Jesus wept.
As anyone who is terminal does, there is bargaining. There is begging. There is hope for a reprieve. How can someone so young willingly roll over and be still while death stalks them? Most can't. Jesus didn't. There were prayers. There were tears. There were plans. There were friends.
Each year as I sat in Maundy Thursday service I would weep. The guilt and the fear were very real to me. Each year I wanted to stand up and say, "No, I can carry my own burden. I can be responsible." It wasn't until years later that I would learn that I actually did have to carry my own burden and take my consequences squarely on the jaw; but as someone still immature to the world Thursday broke me. What also broke me was that Jesus' friends fell asleep while he prayed. They were either resigned to the fact that he believed he would die or they thought he was wasting their time. We will never really know.
On Sunday morning I would walk into church to see an all out celebration and hear singing and chanting and people saying, "We won! He won the battle for us!" The battle. What battle? The battle over death they would say. I would reply with something along the lines of, "But he still died."
I was not being naïve. I was being honest. Have you ever sat with a cancer patient and watched the struggle. Yes, death would probably be easier, but damn, life means kids and books and TV shows. Living means a chance to do something different. What is death?
We have no idea what death is, but we know how people react to it. I call it the "clawing". Imagine a cat thrown into a bathtub. He digs his claws into the porcelain hoping, hoping, squeezing his little paws. He really doesn't want to go. I have a cat and he loves fish. He does not love fish enough to jump in the lake and get his own. I know that people are fascinated with what is on the other side of death, but very few willingly go simply because they know they can't come back and tell us. Once it's done, it's done. I have seen people clawing to stay here on earth just one more minute. Knowing your fate is different than accepting your fate.
Jesus wept.
What I want to know is, regardless if you believe him to be a real person or not, do you understand the emotion of Thursday? Not Easter, not Ostara, not the beauty of Ishtar, not the sun shiny happy eggs...do you understand the weeping? Do you understand (and I say this with respect, even if you believe it to be a story) that Jesus would never be human again and on some deep level that pained him. Look at his relationship to Lazarus. Jesus was full of mourning for his friend. Jesus felt real emotion. He lived a full life. He literally put his hands on people, not to heal but to feel.
So what pains me about Easter? The "get over it" Christian attitude. The attitude of people that believe that someone died for them yet they celebrate- all out party- on the Sunday after their best friend just died. "He has risen and we are blessed". My father never let me have a crucifix because he said as Christians we do not focus on the death. Well, duh. When my father was diagnosed with cancer he certainly focused on death. He prepared for it. He paid for it. He gathered his friends around. They mourned, they prayed, they stayed up all night. That's what real friends do. Today they still call, they still say they miss him. They know that death means 'a not returning'. To sit in Jesus' seat and know that you will not be returning. It is a great and holy narrative on what life should be: Friends, a last supper, a tear in the dark. And then repeat. Repeat it every single day until you are taken by death.
For Christians who have for centuries waited with baited breath for Jesus to return so that they can go to heaven and be "happy", I ask you this: What if he doesn't return in your lifetime? Are you staring at the sky each day waiting for him so you can "get over" this life and move on to something better? Or are you mindful of what he gave up for you? Are you mindful and respectful of what the Bible tells you? Or are you blessed and chosen and allowed to party and then sleep while Jesus begs his Father for a reprieve?
How you view death is important. How you view someone else's sacrifice is what makes you either a friend or a worthless disciple.
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