Good Friday Reflection: Dead. Just Dead. Very Dead.

Dead.

Just dead.

Very dead.

Whatever dead is, that.

And completely so.

All the way.

When people ask me what the line in the Apostles’ Creed that Jesus “descended to the dead” means, that is generally my response.

We have this habit of sentimentalizing death. Of making it softer. Gentler. Kinder.

I suspect this is because even as a people who claim resurrection, we still doubt its power.

We still cannot find the patience for it.

Dead must mean something other than, well, dead.

Just dead.

Very dead.

Whatever dead is, that.

And completely so.

All the way.

Death is such a powerless and powerful thing.

It is powerless because it leaves us that way—the “us” that is left behind.

It is powerful because, well, it is death. And death has a power we cower before.

Some years during Good Friday and the Easter Vigil, I sympathize with the disciples.

Lost.

Depairing.

Facing a world that is not what I expected, and frozen in the face of it.

Some years I feel drawn to the example of Peter. Fervent in my faith at one time, tempted and even found denying it at others—when it all becomes too much.

This year, I feel drawn to the women. The women who in the coming days and hours will tend to stuff that needs done when there is a death. Not the hopeful stuff, just the tending to, the things to be done, to mark a death.

An actual death.

Not a pretend one, or a death pregnant with hope or meaning.

Just death.

This past weekend, I stood beside my colleague Deb Scott as she presented some legislation to the Baltimore-Washington Conference Connectional Table in preparation for this year’s Annual Conference session.

It was legislation about death. Real death.

In particular, legislation about how we approach the death of an active clergy person. Deb has followed my father (and a subsequent interim) at Mill Creek Parish. She knows that such a loss means for a faith community and their pastors.

I had a chance to speak briefly, and when I did I introduced myself by explaining that I am the current expert in the conference on the family end of the death of an active clergy person.

Such is a distinction I would give a great deal to not have.

But the experience has given me some insight about the stuff that needs to and should be done after death—and this very particular type of death.

There is lots to be done.

And I know the women who followed Jesus knew all too well about death too. Indeed, the fact that they had the freedom to traipse around the countryside with Jesus and his followers tells me they were without some very key social connections (and constraints). I suspect they knew all too well and personally about death.

And all that needed to be done.

So they did it.

I suspect not because they had some great hope—if they did, why do those things?

Rather, I suspect they knew death all too well. And they knew you can’t move on without tending to the stuff well.

They were beginning the work of helping themselves and the disciples say goodbye and move on.

No sentimental poems.

No cute sayings or pie in the sky dreams.

Jesus was, after all, dead.

Just dead.

Very dead.

Whatever dead is, that.

And completely so.

All the way.

The difference was not how they saw death.

The difference, in this one amazing and life-shattering and renewing event was not that death wasn’t really death.

It was that death was all of that.

All they’d always believed it to be.

Death was all of that. Fully, totally and completely.

But God was no longer willing for the story to end there.

God wanted us back. From a very real death.

God didn’t want to soften death or make it easier for us.

Goodness knows Jesus’ death was neither soft nor easy.

No, God wanted to break the power of death.

End it.

Completely.

Totally.

And the only way to do that was to journey to it and through it.

To do so, then to come out the other side.

We never realized there was another side.

And till Jesus, there wasn’t.

These coming days, we journey with the women not to hope, but to loss.

To death.

Real death.

That is as far as we, they, or any human can journey on our own.

All our journeys end there.

Sentimentalities be damned, it is, after all, just death.

But here’s the thing: the worst thing is never the last thing.

We claim this because God comes and pulls us beyond the places our stories end.

Beyond defeats.

Beyond ends.

Beyond deaths.

Wait for it…

Just wait for it…!

On Raw Days

I attended a clergy funeral today. For the Rev. Al Clipp.

Two things are sadly noteworthy for me in particular about this.

One: it’s now been nearly two years since I attended my last clergy funeral.

Two: My last clergy funeral was my brother’s. Seven months before that, my grandfather’s. And five months before that, my father’s.

In the intervening years, there have been other services for dear colleagues. This was the first I could attempt.

It was every bit as difficult as I feared.

This is true partly for the very reasons I have made it through all of this: the support of the clergy colleagues who knew these three men, these dear family of mine. Even as we gathered, they seemed to anticipate this was a difficult task for me. Some knew last week had been my father’s birthday. They offered words of deep support. I can imagine few professions where such support and collegiality is more life-giving.

All that, however, did not prepare me for the flood of memories and legacies which came as I sat in the service and remembered all the connections my family had over the years with the Clipp family—including Al but also his brother Bob, also a pastor.

And as Bob preached at the service and spoke about his brother, I couldn’t help but wish my own words about my brother had come after decades of ministry. Or that he had offered his own words after decades of my ministry.

Today was a raw day.

Some days are.

Some days should be.

Today it was as if the invisible connections that bind us together were so clearly visible before me that they clouded my view. The connections across generations and between people. The connections that break, and the connections that can never be broken.

I was reminded today of the strong witness of the tradition my family comes out of, of the legacy of the Evangelical United Brethren church and the fierce service and humility that marks so many of the people my grandfather served with here.

And the faith.

Oh, the faith.

Today the cloud of witnesses was there. So powerfully.

They sat a bit heavy on me today.

But I feel better when they are so clearly present.

It just also feels a bit raw when they are.

But I think maybe sometimes God comes to me most powerfully in those raw days.

May we all cling to the connections which tie us together and be reminded of the great cloud of witnesses that accompanies us as we journey on this pilgrim way, seeking to faithfully serve along the way.

Rest in peace, Al.

And Dan.

And Granddad.

And Dad.

We’ve got each other.

I promise.

And most importantly, God’s got us.

Chasing Shadows

So both after a day looking through poems for Palm Sunday, and perhaps too many days doing stuff that didn't seem terribly important, I wrote the piece below. I am not a poet, but it seemed more concise that trying to capture this more narratively.

The metaphor of chasing shadows was brought forward by my Facebook feed, on which I posted the photo above (of my youngest daughter Mary) a couple years ago.

Some days I chase shadows. As if I and the world are blissfully unaware of the reality of it all.

Some days I find myself focused on the fleeting. The less-than-real. The reflections. The stuff.

Other times the importance of it all is impressive. Sometimes I am even foolishly impressed with myself.

Then I remember my to do list.

All the things I have not done. May not ever get to. For a while. Or ever.

All the things that, as important as they seem, don’t need me. Maybe don’t even actually need to be done.

Shadows.

Some days I have a hard time figuring out what are shadows and what are not.

What is junk. A waste.

And what is not.

Some days I choose poorly.

So I chase shadows.

Then I am tempted to think it is all shadows.

Empty words.

Rote actions.

The results of too many days chasing shadows.

Then the words that had become so routine take on new meaning.

Because today they speak not to a shadow.

But to a truth.

A deep truth.

A truth which needed to be saluted. Honored.

Some days the shadows fly away.

Quite in spite of themselves.

And in spite of myself.

Some days the shadows are gone.

In the light of how God can use us.

Can even use me.

Those days chase the shadows away.