Our Dread and Hope

Holy Week is filled with many emotions: so intense that we call it the Passion.  All at once the idle talk of what ifs and maybes about Jesus becomes real. 

For those at the gates and in the streets of Jerusalem: What if he is the Messiah, the prophet who will free us from Rome?

For the religious elite: Maybe the crowds will make Jesus King, unless we put a stop to this once and for all.

For the Roman State:  What if the Jews turn against Rome?

For those closest to Jesus, the disciples: What if Jesus is the son of God? 
Only then to dissolve on Good Friday: Maybe it was all a lie…

For Jesus there were no what ifs or maybes. 
He knew the cup he had to drink.
He knew the cross he had to bear. 
From the moment he set his gaze upon Jerusalem, he knew the death he was to die.

On Tuesday of this Holy Week, my wife, Emily, gathered with her family in Mississippi as her brother, Reed, drew his last breath. 

Throughout our lives, there will be moments when the things we dread fall at our feet, and we are able to avoid them no longer.  Each of us will die.  We all will experience failure.  We will disappoint those we love.  We will hang our heads in shame for those things we have done and those things we have left undone.

For our family, Reed’s death was that dread; the disquiet that had consumed every corner of our thoughts for the past ten months.  I will miss his laughter, his wisdom, and his curiosity.  I will miss his overabundant joy and the love he gave to those all around him.  I will miss his faith, and the courage and perseverance he showed both in living and in dying.  And yet I know nothing compares to what Emily will miss in the one she called brother.

It is fitting that Reed should die this week, when all the emotions of our faith crescendo around God’s most holy death.  It reminds us that our dread is not the end.  Our fears are not ultimate.  Tomorrow morning, we will celebrate God’s most defining gift, a gift already received by Reed, and one that, indeed, awaits us all.