Yesterday, I sat with a wife as her husband lay dying. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last, I'm sure, but it always humbles me to be present in those last moments. It's both tender and intimate, watching a loved one say good-bye, as well as sad and frightening. While we believe what Jesus tells us about death and life, the grave and resurrection, it's still a frightening experience to die...and to watch someone die. God created us to live, not die: literally, this is not "natural," in the purest sense of the term. And to stand there, and reassure both the dying and the surviving is both an honor and humbling moment.
I prayed the Commendation of the Dying - similar to Last Rights in the Catholic traditiin. The sign of the cross - the same sign, once made on the forehead and heart in Holy Baptism, commending the child to the Lord's promises - was used to commend the dying septuigenarian to the Father's care for a final time as I said, "May God the Father, who created this body, may God the Son, who redeemed this body with His blood, and may God the Holy Spirit, who sanctified this body, bless and keep you to the day of the Resurrection of all flesh."
A short time later, he breathed his last. It was finished: Tetelestai.
That last word of Jesus from the Cross: it was a word of defeat. Not His - that's a common misconception! It was Christ declaring the defeat of satan and the eternal threat of the grave. It's as if Jesus was saying this:
It is finished, satan - you no longer have a hold over My people. It is finished, death - I'm taking a three-day Sabbath rest in the grave and then I will rise, alive and triumphant. It is finished, grave - you are no longer an eternal marker of damnation, but a resting place until I return to claim those who die trusting My promises.
That's the privilege and honor I have as a parish pastor. In the midst of grief and sadness, I get to speak those words of life against death, light against darkness, and hope against hopelessness.
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