Every day, I go walk into my place of work, a hospital full
of dying people. But I don’t know them. I enter in through the front doors,
quickly make my way up a few flights of stairs (because elevators are for
wimps), put my lunch in the break room fridge and then make my way to the lab.
It’s isolated there. The hum of machines and vents dominate the sound space. A
timer will go off, an alarm will sound, the rattling of the keyboard, a cordial
beep every time a bar code is scanned. I’m no doctor. I’m no nurse. I have no
need of ever talking to a dying patient. I’ll spend my time in this lab for 8
hours and then walk out those doors after the sun sets and drive back home.
Patient names and identities are reduced to a series of
numbers and letters, necessary only for identification of lab specimens. The
initial amusement of funny sounding names and alternate spellings of common
monikers wears off quite quickly.
Several times a day, the loudspeaker pierces through the monotony
of the work, an announcement of an incoming trauma case, cardiac arrest
somewhere within the confines of the massive medical complex, perhaps a stroke.
The alarm goes off, the announcement is made, and my co-workers and I continue
our work, perhaps more annoyed then anything by the siren. Our jobs aren’t
directly affected by these codes. It makes no difference to us, yet it is
entirely possible that death will shortly follow these sirens.
Specimens will occasionally come from the morgue or perhaps
from an organ donor. But this reminder of death does little to provoke any fear
or sadness in me. Again, it is a mild inconvenience to me as I must use a
slightly different procedure for these items.
Only once have I realized that the shadow of death is real
in the hospital. One winter grey afternoon, I entered the hospital doors. No
doubt I was either griping about the long walk from the parking lot, the wind
and the cold. I was greeted in the lobby by a weeping family. They were
distraught, as hugs were exchanged and tears flooded their faces. Tissues were
out, and heads were buried. I quickly moved past them and into the stairwell,
but it was clear that something terrible had happened to a loved one. Someone
was lost forever, ripped from their lives a moment too soon. It was a staunch
reminder of the dark shadow that hovers over the place where I earn my
paycheck. For all the business of the Medcenter, the construction of a massive
state of the art building, the bureaucracy, and the television commercials with
uplifting stories of survivors, the fact remains that several people enter that
building, never to come out again. Their story will not be told in the next PR
campaign.
The reality of death is all around us. And in the face of
death, we ask, where is God? Where is the God who allows these injustices to
occur, who allows these families to be cut down? Is he there? Does he care? Is
he “good” as the greeting cards with the Bible verses say he is?
God is there. And I think I know his response to death. It’s
found in John 11:35, the shortest verse in the Bible. “Jesus wept,” As Jesus is
shown the tomb of his friend Lazarus, his first action is not to call him out
of the tomb. Surely he knows that he will raise him from the dead. He has the
power to do so, but first, he mourns him. He sees the death of his friend and
knows that this is not the way things should be.
Before he is betrayed and handed over to be crucified, we
find Jesus praying. He tells his disciples, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow
to the point of death.” (Matthew 11:35). He knows what cup he must drink. He
knows of the glory that will follow when he will rise in 3 days. He knows he is
going to be with the Father once more. But right now, the offensive face and
stench of death is right in front of him.
God sees death. He sees that it is not right. He is not a
God who stands idly by while his creation suffers and moans for him, whether
they know it or not. He sends his Son, to live among his creation, to walk
among his people while they mock him and despise him all the way to Calvary.
These people are not innocent; they are part of the problem. They willingly
choose sin and death over worship and life. He dies for these people, who don’t
deserve this pardon, but God “demonstrates his own love for us in this; while
we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
I have never seen Romans 5:8 on a sympathy card from
Hallmark. But this is the reminder we all need when faced with the reality of
death. God did not simply sit idly, isolated from the death. He did not see redeeming
his people as an inconvenience to his perfect plan, rather it was the plan the
whole time. Death is defeated. Jesus does not hang on the cross forever, and he
will not be found in his tomb. But that will not cheapen the ordeal that Jesus
experienced.
I leave for work in a few minutes as I finish this writing.
I will be annoyed by the traffic on the way to work, the lack of parking, and
the business of the day. Perhaps I have exaggerated the presence of death in my
job.( Don’t forget there’s a lot of “fun” things I get to play with like dermatology
skin swabs, STD swabs, and things in people’s poop!) But the shadow of death
looms over the entire world. Physical death is the most tangible example we
have, but spiritually people are dead everywhere I look. Relationships are
dead. Dreams are dead. Hope is dead. But there is a God who wants to give us
life and who is there to comfort us in this world, this side of eternity. That’s
what we remember this weekend on Good Friday.
That’s what we should remember every day.
