I was in Princeton, New Jersey a few weeks ago visiting family. On a chilly day we visited the cemetery where the ashes of many of grandparents and cousins are kept. Most of my family died in old age.. 80, 90 years old. Their deaths are tragic because people miss them, but time gave them as fair of a shake as one could ask for.
However, there were some in the cemetery who were not given such a fair shake. There was a memorial for an 18 year old girl. I looked at her picture. She had long hair and sat in front of a mirror with a ballet shoes. She was only a Senior in high school. I tried to imagine not living the last year and a half of my life. I tried imagining not existing, and only having those 18 years. I couldn't conceive of it.
Then there was a memorial for a mother. 42 years old. Left behind a husband and children. She was a nurse. The photograph showed her grinning ear to ear in her scrubs, about to go to work. A flood of memories came over me. I remembered the summer night I heard that Dave, a close friend of my family died of a sudden heart attack at 43 years old. This woman died at 40. We still had Dave for those 3 years. Her children must miss her. They must ache for her life. I am sure they would have loved those 3 extra years.
I walked on, looking at memorial after memorial of children.. teenagers.. middle age men and women.. Iraqi soldiers. In moments lives ended, stories were cut short, and people we were thrown into a new horrifying tale of loss.
My mind was racing, my heart was pounding, my eyes were fighting back tears. I was questioning. Why do people have to die young? Why do people have to die at all? Why do we have to live our lives, and even in the best moments, know that it won't last? Why is our final destination a grave?
Then, standing in the middle of the marble glistening cemetery, I turned around and saw a crucifix. My heart almost jumped out of my chest. I walked over to it. I gazed at the gold sketching of Jesus' face. I saw the agony crafted into his eyes, his tense muscles and his lowered head. I stood there and I ran my fingers over his body. I touched his defined arms, his worker's fingertips, his chest that looked like it was extended out-in a final desperate breath. I touched His crown, thorns piercing what was meant to be human scalp. This simple piece of art was agony. It was agony and it was death.
And there He hangs, in the land of other deaths. It almost as if He is continually dying, continually showing us the blood, the tears, the gasps, the horror. I wondered then, Is this why Jesus did it? Did Jesus die because He knew someday people would walk through cemeteries and fear death? Did He do it so we would not have to be afraid?
Perhaps He knew that to die once is terrifying, horrible and unspeakable. To die eternally would almost be too much for a soul to bear.
In that moment in the cemetery I was no longer in New Jersey. I was in the deepest lows of despair in awareness of the frailty that comes with being human. Yet in those deepest lows I was also high up-floating over this carnal earth. I was suddenly painfully and humbly reminded that before Jesus was a King, He was criminal on a cross. And before He knew life abudantly, He died ultimate death.
