It is finished
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Death is a topic that most people are reluctant to talk about. Yet we know that nobody leaves this world alive. We will all die sooner or later. Jean and I have the same attitude towards death. We do not want to talk about it. We pray for long life. We are afraid to die. But after eleven years in Couples for Christ, we are now able to talk about death. Sometimes we even talk lightly about it. For instance, I would tell Jean, “When we pray, we tell God how much we love Him and how much we long to be with Him. But when the plane we are riding in encounters bad weather, we pray, ‘Lord please do not let this plane crash. Do not let us die.’ Are we not contradicting our prayers? We long to be with God. We want to be with Him. But we do not want to die. Yet dying is the only way to join Him. We first have to die to meet God in beatific vision. Yet we are all scared of death. Thus how can we really mean what we say in prayer when we fear death?” Fear of death is a very human emotion. Being truly human, Jesus experienced fear of suffering and death on the evening he was betrayed. At the Garden of Gethsemane, three times he asked God: Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will” (Mk 14:36). My brothers and sisters, during this Holy Week, let us reflect about death. But most especially, let us ponder upon that one unique death that has brought us eternal life – Jesus’ death on the cross, which is in fact the fullest manifestation of God’s infinite love for mankind. The Gospel of Mark describes a very human Jesus. To Mark, Jesus is the Son of Man who is “troubled and distressed” at Gethsemane. He recalls Jesus on the cross praying the second verse of Psalm 22: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mk 15:34) Psalm 22 is a prayer of an innocent person, a very human one. It starts with a description of how God has become so distant from him in space and in time. He depicts a contrast between his present suffering and his past experience of God’s mercy. He paints a mental picture of the attacks against him and pleads for God’s help. He then invites all to join him in praising God. He ends his prayer in a universal chorus of praise by all – those in the present (all who sleep in the earth), those in the past (all who have gone down into dust), and those in the future (the generation to come). The Gospel of Luke recalls verse 6 of Psalm 31 as Jesus prays on the cross: Into your hands I commend my spirit (Lk 23:46). Psalm 31 is a prayer of a person in distress and a thanksgiving to God. In his trouble and distress, he finds safety in the hands of God. While expressing his great trust in God, he describes his lament and experience of suffering. He ends his prayer in praise of God’s protection and goodness. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is more the Son of God who is always in control of everything. In the Gospel of Mark, he is more the Son of Man who “gave a loud cry and breathed his last” (Mk 15:37). But in John, Jesus’ final moment is described thus: When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.” (Jn 19:30). As Son of God, Jesus, always in control of his own destiny, declares that his work “is finished.” Still in control, Jesus bows his head and hands over his spirit. On our deathbed, we might be tempted to think that God has abandoned us. We might get the feeling that God is too distant – too far from us in both time and space. At that moment, we should recall the goodness of God. We must remind ourselves of God’s prodigal love, perfectly expressed in the sending of His only Son into the world to suffer and die so that those who believe in him may have eternal life. At the moment of death, our mind must focus on Jesus on the cross. We must remember that like all the others who were crucified before him, Jesus was expected to shout curses and cry out blasphemies, which served to somehow lessen the pain of the crucifixion. And indeed Jesus cried on the cross. But instead of a curse and a blasphemy, Jesus cried out a prayer of forgiveness: Father, forgive them, they know not what they do (Lk 23:34). At the hour of our death, we must think of Jesus who, as a baby in the manger at Bethlehem, accepted the gifts of the wise men of gold, frankincense and myrrh. But as a man on the cross in Calvary, he declined the sedative of wine mixed with myrrh, which would lessen the pain of the crucifixion. Instead, because of his great love for us, he chose to endure the fullest extent of the pain of the cross that would save us. Thus Jesus’ acceptance of the gift of myrrh in Bethlehem foreshadowed his refusal of the dose of myrrh in Calvary. For he did not want to deaden the pain of our salvation. My brothers and sisters, when our son, Joel, died at the age of twenty-four two years ago, we were not at his bedside. Jean and I were on mission in Indonesia to give teachings to the CFC community and to select and install the new members of the CFC national council. We learned of his sudden death when our eldest son, Joubert, called us while we were at the airport in Jakarta awaiting our flight to Brunei to give some teachings to the CFC community there. How much had we wished to be at his bedside, to comfort him, to embrace him, to hold his hand, to pray over him! But God wanted us to be elsewhere, because He desired His holy angels to be the ones to surround Joel as he breathed his last. We were certain that a flight of angels brought Joel’s soul to the gate of heaven to meet Jesus, his Redeemer. For Joel could not have offended God during his entire life on earth. He was born deaf, mute and blind and suffered from autism and tetralogy of fallot. He remained innocent like a child. He did not know right from wrong. After baptism, his soul must have remained unblemished, already prepared to meet God in beatific vision, cleansed by the blood of Christ on the cross. Death did not terrify Joel. Being multi-handicapped, he had no sense of fear of death. In fact, his soul must have been longing to be freed from the imprisonment of his body devastated by the rubella virus since conception. And thereby freed, Joel must now be enjoying the happiness and comfort that were denied from him throughout his twenty-four years on earth. He must now be resting “like a weaned child on its mother’s lap” (Ps 131:2). My brothers and sisters, if indeed we truly believe that death is nothing but a passage from a life of fleeting joy on earth to a life of eternal happiness in heaven, then we must welcome it. If we value our relationship with God much more than we cherish our relationship with friends and family, then we must long to end our pilgrimage on earth and yearn with great anticipation to reach our final destination in heaven. We are unable to do this, I believe, because we have not been faithful in doing the Father’s will for us – to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. We have not been able to follow the footsteps of the Son – to serve others to the point of giving up our life. And we have not been able to obey the prompting of the Holy Spirit – to go to the ends of the earth and proclaim the gospel. Therefore, unlike Jesus, we are not able to say, “It is finished.” And thus, we refuse to bow our head and are dreadful of handing over our spirit. Indeed blessed are those who, like Joel, remain like a child, for death scares them not. And the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. |
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