I recently read two separate interviews from doctors fighting the coronavirus, one in the UK and the other in New York City. They both recounted witnessing patients on the brink of death while their medical teams tried to save them. 

“He was in distress and panicked, I could see the terror in his eyes… He was alone.” (NY Times)

“He was gasping for breath with every ounce of life that he could muster. I could see the terror in his eyes. He knew… And I felt overcome with [fear], too.” (Daily Mail – UK)

Panic. Terror in the eyes. Gasping.

Can you imagine seeing such an emotion visibly manifested in someone’s eyes? Enough terror, in fact, to strike fear into the very doctor who is supposed to save life. It ought to send chills down your back.

You feel it too, don’t you? The fear?

It’s all we hear about in the news. Anxiety. Hysteria. Confusion. Despair.

What’s the cause of this world-changing, life-altering, bone-chilling fear?

Death.

Is death not a perennial problem for people of every age? Humans toil all their lives for money and power, pleasure and sustenance; and all for what? Death. It comes to snatch the young and the old alike. No one can escape its haunting grasp. Death cares not for your loved ones or the plans that you’ve made. Death is ever-approaching, never tiring in its pursuit. You can run, but you can’t hide from death. 

But death’s power is actually hollow. Its wicked and savage reign has been overthrown. Death is the one who ought to quiver in fear.

There was a man who lived and died just like us, but then he rose from the dead, he was freed from the agony of death (Acts 2:24). Whoever believes in that resurrected man “will live, even though he dies” (John 11:25-26). That man frees his friends from their fear of death (Heb 2:15). That man is Life itself. 

In the softest, lowest, and most tender voice in all the world he whispers into every fearful heart:

My friend, do not be afraid of death anymore. I am Christ Jesus, the Savior of your soul. I was dead, but now I live forever. I hold the keys of life and death. I have defeated death so that you may have life without end. 

Put your hope in me, the only man who has ever entered the jaws of death and emerged victorious. I am the first to triumphantly cry out, “O Death, where is your sting!”

Give me your suffering. In my hands, suffering becomes the instrument of salvation.

To catch even a glimpse of my radiant glory would cause your heart to burst into tears of joy. That radiant glory—the brilliant light which streams forth from my wounds—will satisfy every desire of your restless heart. You’ve never known something so truly breath-taking. If you trust in me, your last breath is simply a prelude to the ineffable glory to come.

Last Friday, we mourned the death of a rabbi. Today, we revel in the resurrection of the Christ.

✠

Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. (used with permission)