The Death of God…from the Perspective of a Hospice Nurse
This past week (Holy Week) leading up to Good Friday, I read through the Passion narratives in the Gospels. Desperate for more revelation on the cross and the reasons to its centrality to the Christian faith, I spent time reading, praying, and meditating on Jesus’ last hours before he died…or was killed.
Now, since I was a little tot, I have always been around church. I still remember the first time I heard of a pastor in preschool: I came home and informed my mother that I had “met a pasture today.” I don’t remember my mom’s reaction, but she says it startled her enough that she started bringing me to church. Needless to say, I’ve heard alot about the cross.
The unthinkable agony.
The abandonment and deep isolation.
The humiliation.
The heart wrench of Mary and Jesus’ friends watching Him die, slow and painful.
The weight of God’s holy wrath…”the cup” (scripture refs.)
The descension to hell.
The glorious resurrection.
The hope and forgiveness.
The sacrificial love.
The power of the grave defeated.
I’m sure we can all go on about the truly amazing things we have heard and hopefully grasped about the cross and resurrection.
But this week, the Lord has stopped me dead in my tracks at a certain point in the recording of history. This part has taken my breath away, startled me, confused me, scared me, and humbled me as only a slight deepening of the revelation of the cross touched my heart and mind. Its that God incarnate…
…He died.
It seems ridiculous to point out, because the idea is sooooo familiar. Perhaps I am alone in this, shallow in my revelation and understanding. But, out of my mouth all I could mutter before Him was that “Oh! …my God, you died. The Word made Flesh, you died. Your spirit surrendered. You, fully God and fully man, the One through whom all the world was created, died…and became cold.”
For myself, I know I had to resist feeling offended at the thought of my King ever physically dead, similar to Peter saying “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Mat. 16) in response to Jesus prophesying about His death.
If we are tempted to think this sounds morbid or offensive to focus on Jesus death, I adjure you, beloved, to not shy away from reality. I am reminded of Jesus’ response to Peter “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Fear not death (Heb. 2), however know its reality for all of us, and in turn fear God (2 Cor 7:1, Rev. 14). Death can be a taboo topic due to our seemingly inherent fear of our own mortality. But only in realizing its reality, abiding in the One who conquered it, and becoming born again as God’s child can we live free from the fear of death, for we belong to the only God who casts out all fear and gives eternal life (Rom. 8, 1 John 4).
In Mark and Luke, death of Jesus is recorded similarly, seemingly focusing on the implication of a physical death. Matthew and John record it slightly different, seemingly focusing on (for a moment) the reality of Jesus’ physical death, but to all the same truth.
“And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.” (Mat. 27)
“And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.” (Mark 15)
“And having said this he [Jesus] breathed his last.” (Luke 23)
“And he [Jesus] bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (John 20)
Take a moment and just meditate on those verses, asking God what He might reveal to you.
I am not sure your age or experience with death. I am not sure if you’ve lost someone close, are a nurse, work in a funeral home, perhaps have been in war and seen more than your share, or maybe you’ve never seen a dead body. I am not sure of your exposure to death and I desire to not compare in sharing my story, but only to share in hopes of new revelations about the lengths and depths our Father will go for us.
I grew up with hospitals and sounding alarms were seemingly as familiar as the sounds at the playground, as my mom had numerous chronic physcial illnesses. There were also a lot of friends, family, teachers, and college professors ranging from the sweet young age of 4 to quite elderly that have passed away during my short 26 years thus far. Fear of death struck quite young and seemed to be justified by life circumstances. Even when I was about four years old, I “died” and was resuscitated in an ambulance, saved by God’s power and those EMTs who fought for my life. When my mom passed away a couple years ago, she was the first person in my innermost circle I have lost, and death itself seemed to scream its name even more personal, more real to me.
I have also been a hospice nurse. Ever so innocently, people would often ask how work was today. I would usually leave out that I bathed, changed the sheets, closed the eyes, and brushed the hair of a deceased patient so their family could see them dignified instead of with wires and tubes attached to them. I would leave out that I just came home from work after zipping a person made in God’s image in a body bag, and wheeled (accompanied by security) said person to the basement morgue in our hospital. I would leave out that I cried with a family after spending hours at the patient’s bedside in their home, helping them die “more comfortably”…but I felt I failed. I would leave out how I hated the cold touch of a person as I listened to verify that their precious heart–once full of joy, sorrow, memories, dreams and fears–was now…silent.
As the Lord caused me to meditate on the reality that He, enfleshed in Christ, “breathed his last,” I realized that Jesus (like my deceased loved ones and the many I have cared for in hospice) became still and cold. I empathize with Joseph of Armiathea (a disciple of Jesus) and Nicodemus. They both took Jesus’ body down from the cross, “bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews,” and “laid him in the tomb.” (Mark 16, John 19:31-42, Luke 23). After providing post-mortem care to deceased people, the real physical, spiritual, and emotional implications for Joseph and Nicodemus to care for Jesus beaten and dead body, strikes my soul and mind in a more tangible way. Oh, how the the severity of the cross is rising to light in a new way for my once unknowingly prideful assumption of my slightest revelations. The Author of life, forsake His actual breath for Love.
While I am excited to focus on the resurrection and the hope and glory of His return, I cannot deny the importance of grasping the reality of the cross–and, I suppose the resurrection only gains its power from the cross. Even Paul, who lived in the power of the Holy Spirit and reality of the resurrection preached “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2). In the book of Revelation, Jesus is said to now be “clothed with a long robe and a golden sash” and have a powerful voice “like the roar of many waters. (Rev. 1)” He is the “only one found worthy,” worshiped in all of heaven, and it is prophesied that “he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him” in all His glory (Rev. 1, Rev. 5). Yet, in that same book, Jesus is identified as the Lamb or Lamb who was slain on over 25 occasions. The only thing (I can think of) Jesus asked us to do “in remembrance of me” is communion, which reveals Jesus’ desire for the centrality of His death in our relationship to Him (1 Corin 11, Luke 22). The centrality of His death throughout scripture, is causing my heart to be hungry for a deeper revelation of Jesus through the cross.
I love these humbling statements by P.T. Forsth, quoted in The Cross of Christ, by John Stott,
Christ is to us just what his cross is. All that Christ was in heaven or on earth was put into what he did there…Christ, I repeat, is to us just what his cross is. You do not understand Christ till you understand his cross. (italicized/bolded for emphasis)
And furthermore, I would dare to believe I only can know God the Father if I know Christ (John 8, John 14) and perhaps I can only deeply know Christ through the cross. I pray the Lord would cleanse my heart and in His mercy reveal His powerful love if my fear of anything, yet alone death (which He conquered by his own), would keep me from meditating on the Cross of Christ–and thus knowing Him and worshiping Him truer still.
Dearest blessings beloved,
Sarah
