“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
Matthew 5:4
“I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades”.
Revelation 1:17-18
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
John 19:30
A woman grieves today for the loss of her husband. For the loss of her four young sons’ father. It’s Good Friday and it is a day seared sharp with memories of a year ago; of waving him off for a normal procedure, of her youngest falling down the stairs leaving pranged glasses and of casually wondering which day he would likely come home.
The clock ticks slow, memories of this beloved man and this harrowing time floods back without invitation or caution, breathing and living each moment again. The stinging scent of disinfectant, the rhythmic whir and bleep of machine, forcing the rise and fall of lungs as hard metal carries the work. The touch of his still warm hand in hers as she absently strokes the soft hair in curls around his wrist.
It’s hard to breathe when the weight of this loss returns, forces its way to the front, demanding to be heard above all else. It comes as it will, punching the gut, never easing with practice. And it’s never been one year before, grief taking its seat quietly, with this particular poignancy.
The irreplaceable loss is hard to reconcile. The impossibility of reunion inconceivable, without any surety that it will come at all, beyond this life. Death constricts and steals breath again. It steals breath however it can, in the one who’s life here is coming to an end and in the ones who remain and grieve, trying to catch their wind and remember how to live and take in air all over again.
It’s Good Friday. A Father lost his Son today. A Son lost his father. They had been close forever, never a day apart, never a moment of separation or disagreement between them. They had only known Time with each other, created it together, the Father dreaming a beautiful vision, the Son bringing it to life for the joy of them both. A glorious reflection and expression of all that they were.
But a stain had come across the beauty they made, an irreversible choice by their children causing a faultline to the core, an unraveling that gathered form and momentum over time. The intention of an eternal dance of love and communion, celebrating and basking in the mutual glory of one another; the earth singing to the sky, the birds to creatures of fields, the children to the Father and Son, slipped and began to fall apart, even as the Father continued to hold it all together.
An illusion came to the children, a blinding; an idea that independence was better, that power was safety, that the Father and Son could not be trusted and so fear and isolation stepped in. Separating human from nature, man from woman, children from the Father; a slow and steady jarring. This separation was never what they intended, not what they created.
But still, the steady love of the Father, stronger than steel, closer than air continued to move, slipping through the cracks of time and the darkness of hearts. Father and Son seamlessly moving in response, always working together, always working together for good. They knew what was needed, chose together without hesitation to unwind and turn back the cost, to cry loud and holy over all that they had made.
And so the Father watched as the Son stepped into skin, out of eternity and into Time, letting go of sovereignty and pulling around himself all that it is to be human. Coming right into the fault line, right into the suffering and divide He came and walked and loved, breathed and suffered and then was killed, as the stain sought to smite Him out, to destroy even the source of love. The Son felt what it was to experience death from the inside. He died alone, naked, beaten, humiliated and physically torn. He felt the light disappear, carried the weight of loneliness to the point where He could no longer feel His Father’s gaze close upon Him, questioned where He had gone.
The Father watched and suffered as even this Son was broken and separated from His love, even this One with whom He had always been, no longer recognised Him. Yet still, in the middle of this they both yielded. They both softened and loved, received it all and allowed the move of love to still flow through them, because even in death, it cannot be snuffed out. Fear fell in the face of love. Anger crumbled in the face of love.
Through the softening and yielding, separation could not last, division could not remain, the disintegration was undone. The Son stood in the faultline and He filled the chasm, breathing life into Death; He moved into it, inhabited it, filling Death so full of Himself, so full of Life from the inside, swollen full until its edges dissolved and was no more.
And so Breath comes. It comes. In the middle of a woman’s grief, in the middle of her pain and loss, Breath is there, drawing her forwards, leading her on. Because Death is never the final word. It lasts only a moment…only a moment. Because it really is finished. She just cannot see what’s happening around the corner.