Death is a catastrophe.
It ends a world:
an irreplaceable and unique set
of experiences and events.
In my father’s case, it has ended an experience
of deprivation in the Great Depression;
of sacrifice and struggle in the Second World War;
of years of hard work at everything he put his hand to;
of thousands of books read;
of scores of jigsaw puzzles finished
and genealogical puzzles untangled;
of days tending blueberry bushes and Gerber daisies,
swimming laps in a pool and playing bocce,
watching the stock market
and predicting an imminent crash;
of a lifetime of loving my mother,
and then my brother and me,
and then six grandchildren.
All of those experiences
are suddenly vanished from our world,
leaving behind a gaping void.
And so we mourn.
It ends a world:
an irreplaceable and unique set
of experiences and events.
In my father’s case, it has ended an experience
of deprivation in the Great Depression;
of sacrifice and struggle in the Second World War;
of years of hard work at everything he put his hand to;
of thousands of books read;
of scores of jigsaw puzzles finished
and genealogical puzzles untangled;
of days tending blueberry bushes and Gerber daisies,
swimming laps in a pool and playing bocce,
watching the stock market
and predicting an imminent crash;
of a lifetime of loving my mother,
and then my brother and me,
and then six grandchildren.
All of those experiences
are suddenly vanished from our world,
leaving behind a gaping void.
And so we mourn.
Oh, we can say lots of things—
true things—
that seem to suggest we should not mourn:
death is natural, a part of life;
everything happens for a reason;
the dead live on in our memories
and in our hearts;
death is the entrance into eternal life.
But all of this
is just whistling past the graveyard.
None of these things we say,
true as they may be,
change the fact
that death is a catastrophe
that opens a void in our world.
And so we mourn.
true things—
that seem to suggest we should not mourn:
death is natural, a part of life;
everything happens for a reason;
the dead live on in our memories
and in our hearts;
death is the entrance into eternal life.
But all of this
is just whistling past the graveyard.
None of these things we say,
true as they may be,
change the fact
that death is a catastrophe
that opens a void in our world.
And so we mourn.
Some people ask, “Was it sudden?”
To which I can only answer,
well, it took ninety-five years;
but, yes, it was sudden.
It was sudden because every human life
ought to last forever,
yet for some reason does not,
and this is a catastrophic truth about our world.
Over 166,000 people die each day,
nearly two every second,
but that doesn’t make death less catastrophic.
It simply gives us some idea
of the scale and scope of the catastrophe.
And so we mourn.
To which I can only answer,
well, it took ninety-five years;
but, yes, it was sudden.
It was sudden because every human life
ought to last forever,
yet for some reason does not,
and this is a catastrophic truth about our world.
Over 166,000 people die each day,
nearly two every second,
but that doesn’t make death less catastrophic.
It simply gives us some idea
of the scale and scope of the catastrophe.
And so we mourn.
Pascal pointed out that our sense
of the catastrophic character of our existence
is a sign that something has gone wrong.
We are, he says, fragile reeds that snap and break,
but we are also, when we are not distracting ourselves,
thinking reeds, aware of and outraged at our fragility.
Our sense that even ninety-five years are too few,
that even one death is too many,
points us to a truth:
we are made for something more,
we are meant for something greater.
Pascal writes, “For who thinks
he is unhappy not to be king
other than a dispossessed king?” (Pensées S149)
Like royalty sent into exile,
we sense the wrongness of our state,
the height from which we have fallen,
the treasure that has been taken from us;
though, also like many a ruler sent into exile,
we know deep down
that we bear responsibility for our state.
For we human beings
have turned from the source of our existence,
rejected the love that called us out of nothingness,
squandered our inheritance
and fallen into the catastrophic abyss of death.
And so we mourn.
of the catastrophic character of our existence
is a sign that something has gone wrong.
We are, he says, fragile reeds that snap and break,
but we are also, when we are not distracting ourselves,
thinking reeds, aware of and outraged at our fragility.
Our sense that even ninety-five years are too few,
that even one death is too many,
points us to a truth:
we are made for something more,
we are meant for something greater.
Pascal writes, “For who thinks
he is unhappy not to be king
other than a dispossessed king?” (Pensées S149)
Like royalty sent into exile,
we sense the wrongness of our state,
the height from which we have fallen,
the treasure that has been taken from us;
though, also like many a ruler sent into exile,
we know deep down
that we bear responsibility for our state.
For we human beings
have turned from the source of our existence,
rejected the love that called us out of nothingness,
squandered our inheritance
and fallen into the catastrophic abyss of death.
And so we mourn.
But here is the funny thing about Christianity:
without denying our fallen state,
without ignoring the abyss into which we fall,
we believe that the love
without denying our fallen state,
without ignoring the abyss into which we fall,
we believe that the love
that called us out of nothingness,
has pursued us into that abyss;
we believe that the Word
has pursued us into that abyss;
we believe that the Word
through whom all things were made
has taken flesh and dwelt among us
and entered even death’s exile,
to fill the void of nothingness
with the light of eternity.
We all fall into the catastrophic abyss of death,
but there, in the very heart of the catastrophe,
we find Jesus:
binding up the broken-hearted,
proclaiming liberty to those
has taken flesh and dwelt among us
and entered even death’s exile,
to fill the void of nothingness
with the light of eternity.
We all fall into the catastrophic abyss of death,
but there, in the very heart of the catastrophe,
we find Jesus:
binding up the broken-hearted,
proclaiming liberty to those
captive in death’s exile,
giving us garlands instead of ashes,
and the oil of gladness instead of mourning.
We find Jesus,
from whom nothing can separate us:
neither death nor life,
nor things present,
nor things to come,
nor height,
nor depth.
We find Jesus,
who loses nothing
that his Father has given him,
but raises it up to eternal life.
And what the Father has given him is us:
he holds in his heart each of our lives,
in their irreplaceable uniqueness,
so that none of it is lost.
We mourn, because our loss is real.
But Jesus loses nothing;
Jesus loses no one.
The thinking reeds that snap and break
will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
giving us garlands instead of ashes,
and the oil of gladness instead of mourning.
We find Jesus,
from whom nothing can separate us:
neither death nor life,
nor things present,
nor things to come,
nor height,
nor depth.
We find Jesus,
who loses nothing
that his Father has given him,
but raises it up to eternal life.
And what the Father has given him is us:
he holds in his heart each of our lives,
in their irreplaceable uniqueness,
so that none of it is lost.
We mourn, because our loss is real.
But Jesus loses nothing;
Jesus loses no one.
The thinking reeds that snap and break
will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
Faith commits us to the truth of this reality,
though it is for now hidden from our sight;
faith turns us back
to the love that has loved us into being
and plants us in the heart of Christ.
John and I are, by vocation if not disposition,
quite public about our faith;
it is sort of in our job descriptions.
Our father was not.
But he was nothing if not faithful—
the world’s most reliable man:
faithful to his family,
faithful to his labors,
faithful to his God.
He spoke to me once a few years ago
about how he imagined heaven:
it would be a place where he would find
all those people he had lost
to death’s catastrophe:
family and friends,
all those people from whom
the fabric of his life had been woven,
all those people whose lives
were so meticulously documented
on his genealogical charts,
even those who had faded from his memory,
but whom God remembers.
I pray he will also find jigsaw puzzles
and Gerber daisies.
And I pray that he will find all of us,
loved and treasured
in the heart of Christ.
