I can't imagine knowing the day or the hour of my death. Death is a mystery I contemplate quite a bit, but not as if it is imminent. For some reason I can't stop thinking about the weight of Christ's self-knowledge. We know from the evangelist that Jesus wasn't born understanding everything about himself. We know the "child grew in wisdom (Luke2)." Yet during his public ministry the thought must have surfaced and receded a hundred times. The final journey to Jerusalem would be his last. Did he wonder at table that night what it would be like to die? Did he eat and drink and sing with his friends all the while slipping into a desperate sadness that would overflow in the nearby garden? Did he see those angels who came to comfort him? At what point did the fear give way to the certainty that GOD was with him? That GOD would make this selfless act the end of death itself? That beyond death there was a reality too wonderful to name or describe? I wonder... Christ's passion and death seem the point of complete cooperation - the place where humanity and divinity, in their fullness, resolve to choose love. The Word is flesh. The Son of God weeps and bleeds as we all do. But on that good Friday, so long ago, Love went where it had never gone before - into the depths of our fear and suffering - so that we'd never have to go there alone...ever again. "Behold the wood of the cross on which hung the Savior of the world. Come, let us worship."
