The curtain has fallen. Act Two is over. We are left with only death. We can’t avoid it, we can’t hide from it, we can’t run from it. Whether the death we’re left with is a physical one, or the death of a dream, or the death of a relationship, or even the death of possibilities, whether the death is our own or someone else’s, whether it was expected or unexpected, it always hits us with a finality that leaves us stunned.
Jesus told his disciples he was going to die. True, he didn’t say the words, “I am going to die,” but he was pretty clear that Jerusalem was going to be the end of this particular journey. And, in fact, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Death is always the end of every journey. Or maybe it is more accurate to say that every journey ends, and when it does, it is a death. Or a loss. Or The End. Whatever we call it, it is inevitable for all of us and for every thing that exists in this universe.
It’s amazing, though, the lengths we go to to to avoid facing the end of something. You may have heard of Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, and the five stages of grief. Most people think that this is how we react to death after it happens, but Kübler-Ross actually developed these five experiences as reactions to impending death - five things that people experience when they are facing death, whether literal death or the death of an idea or a relationship or a long-cherished hope. The five experiences, as you probably know, are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, and people can go through them one at a time, but we are more likely to experience several simultaneously, or even go back and forth between several of them multiple times. Who here hasn’t denied the impending death of something? Maybe it’s been the death of a relationship, and you find yourself denying that things are as bad they look. Or who hasn’t been angry in the face of death? When I faced the death of a particular dream of mine, oh, was I angry! Or bargaining? Who hasn’t engaged in earnest and intense prayer in the hopes of averting the death of something or someone? Christians are especially good at turning prayer into a bargaining tool, in the hopes of putting off the end as long as possible. We experience all of these reactions when faced with the end, but unfortunately neither denial nor anger nor bargaining is able to stop the end from coming. The curtain always falls. Act Two always comes to an end. Good Friday comes every year.
The particularly troubling thing about death is that it defies all sense we try to make out of the world. Death never makes sense when we look at the life that came before it. We spend our entire lives growing and achieving new things, learning and expanding; from the level of the smallest cell up to the biggest civilization, the human experience is one of growth and progress. But it never lasts. Nothing we do can make it continue on forever. The lives we’ve so carefully planned and carried out are scattered like dust. And so Act Two never seems the appropriate conclusion to Act One. We try to make sense of it. Our lives consist of day-to-day struggles to make sense of death. Religion, philosophy, the arts, even the sciences, they all try to make sense of the inescapable nature of the end.
Just look at how we try to make sense of Jesus’ death. In the Gospel of John, which we heard today, Jesus’ death happens because “the enemy” hated Jesus. Whether that enemy is the darkness that hates the light, or “the Jews” (the Gospel of John is unfortunately hostile towards Jews), or even us, whose sins made necessary Jesus’ atoning crucifixion, John tries to give meaning to Jesus’ death by saying that it happened because of someone else’s evil intentions. And so sometimes when we face death in our own lives, we search for someone or something to blame. Whether it is another person, or cancerous cells, or greedy businesses, or even secular society - we look for “the enemy” who is trying to end things for us, so that we can make sense of death.
But, sometimes, there isn’t any enemy. Sometimes death comes and there has been no conflict, no enemy, no evil intentions. And so we search for another way to make sense of it. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the meaning of Jesus’ death is a bit different. In those Gospels, the writers try to make sense of Jesus’ death by saying that it was God’s will. Scripture was to be fulfilled, and Jesus’ death would therefore happen no matter what. Jesus says in the garden, “Not my will, but yours be done.” Some Christians try to explain death as God’s plan for us to receive new life. Luther was particularly fond of saying this - the waters of baptism drown us, kill us, so that we might receive the new life that God offers through Christ. We often turn to this explanation when death comes at the end of a long struggle. But again, it doesn’t explain why we have death at all - it doesn’t give meaning to this bizarre human story that we live, live, live, and then we die.
But really, no matter what explanation we choose to understand and give meaning to death, all of them fall flat when that moment comes. And comes it does. No matter what explanation we give, we cannot stop it from coming. We may say that death comes because a hostile force is out to get us - evil, the devil, sin - but there is no wall we can put up to keep it out, or fight we can give that will defeat it. We may say that death comes because that is God’s will for us - but there is no prayer we can make that will stop its arrival, or sacrifice we can offer that will take its place. It is truly a mystery. For all things, big and small, for individuals, for communities, for relationships, for dreams, death comes at the end.
And so the question becomes, not why does death come, but how do we carry on afterwards? Once we have been through Good Friday, how do we get through Holy Saturday? What do we do the day after death? The Bible is - amazingly - silent about what happened the day after Jesus died. The Gospels all end the scene of Jesus’ Act Two by saying it was the Sabbath - the day of rest. But they don’t describe what happens among the disciples or what happens in the tomb. It’s almost as if the day doesn’t quite exist - nothing quite happens on that day. It is a day sucked out of the flow of time - deleted from history. An intermission that seems to go on forever. Which, I imagine, is what it felt like for the disciples. The day after the death of a dearly beloved one is often like that - a blur, vague, nothing feels real, dimmed, muted, a fog. The day after a significant loss everything feels like it has lost its meaning - we feel at sea and directionless. If I were one of the disciples, I probably would have just lay on the floor all day because there would have been no reason to do anything else. This is what we are tempted to do after every death.
But, and this is really of utmost importance, we are not the disciples. We know, in a way that they did not, that this is not the end of the story. Neither Jesus’ death nor the ones we experience in our own lives are the end. They are inevitable, they are inescapable, but they are not final. There is something after death, there is new life, Act Three. There is Easter.
It would be foolish for us to pretend today that we don’t know this. Today is Good Friday, after all. We are somber, of course, because Jesus did die, because even the Son of God accepts the way in which all things end, but we do not go through this day in despair. We do not, in fact, go through any death with despair. Instead, we go through it with sadness, yes, and also hope and trust. Trust in God’s promise of new life after death, a promise we know to be true because we have seen it in Christ’s own resurrection. A promise that we trust, and that fills us with hope, because our God is first and foremost the God of Resurrection and Life for all of creation.
The curtain has fallen. Act Two is over. But the story has not yet come to an end. We must sit through the intermission, true, but there is one act left to be played out. God has written a wonderful conclusion, we have only to hang on for a little bit longer, trusting that the best is yet to come and the curtain will rise again. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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