Laugh or Cry

Facing death by peering through the eyes of faith

02/25/2018

Mark 9:2-10 Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, "Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him." Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them. As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.

The natural human response to the very sober subject of death is either to laugh or to cry. Death does not tolerate any reasonable reaction and so we try to brush it off lightly as if it were nothing, the butt of a joke, or we are overwhelmed by it and weep without hope. The Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, urged his dying father: “Do not go gentle into that good night…rage, rage against the dying of the light.” We can easily imagine Dylan Thomas saying those words with tears welling up in his eyes. St. Augustine said that “this created universe unceasingly leans over toward the abyss of nothingness” (cf. The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, 72). Augustine was trying to describe the frailty and finality of all creation as contingent, everything always borders on extinction. Have you ever stood on a high mountain cliff and peered over the edge and felt vertigo? The prospect of death produces a similar “spiritual vertigo” in anyone who peers into its dark depths. We fear we will fall into death’s cold embrace.

On the other hand, we may try to make light of death by attempting to laugh at it. Consider this joke. Lenny went on vacation for a month and asked Bobby to watch over his house. About a week later, Lenny called home and asked: “How’s my cat?” Bobby hesitated and sadly told Lenny that his cat had died. “What?!” Lenny cried. “You shouldn’t have broken the news to me like that! You should have done it slowly. The first time I called, you should have told me the cat was on the roof. The second time I called you should have told me there was no way to get her down. The third time I called, you should have told me that you tried to get her off the roof, but she fell down and died,” explained Lenny. Bobby apologized and went about his day. About a week later, Lenny called and casually asked, “How’s my grandma?” There was a long pause and then Bobby answered, “Well, she’s on the roof.” Sometimes we weep and sometimes we laugh when we face death, but the one thing we never do is treat it casually as if it were nothing. Death demands a dramatic response from us.

For people of faith, however, especially for us Christians, laughing and crying are not the only ways to deal with death. This unique Christian response to the specter of death was the underlying message of Jesus’ Transfiguration on Mount Tabor. Jesus invites his three closest apostles, Peter, James and John, to witness his glory atop a mountain. There, standing between Elijah and Moses – who, by the way, represented the Prophets and the Law, and therefore, those two embodied all of the Old Testament wisdom and holiness – standing between them, Jesus gives the apostles (as well as Moses and Elijah) a glimpse of his resurrected body after he would be raised from the dead.

But the apostles’ minds could not conceive “what rising from the dead meant.” Why? Well, because they had only learned what the Old Testament – that is, Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets – had to teach about death, and that, by and large, was that death was simply the end of life (save for the exceptional cases of Enoch in Gn. 5:24 and Elijah in 2 Kgs. 2:11). About all the comfort the Old Testament could offer anyone who faced the death of a loved one was to say, “Well, your grandma is on the roof.” The Old Testament, sublime and holy as it was, did not have an answer for the riddle of death, and that was what Jesus was conversing about with Moses and Elijah; he was telling them something they did not know. The Transfiguration, therefore, was like a preview of the coming attraction of the Resurrection, a glimpse of the glory after death. And that allowed the apostles to look off the edge of Mount Tabor, and not feel any spiritual vertigo, because if they fell, they would be caught by the arms of Jesus, not the cold embrace of death. The newness of Christianity consists precisely in giving a definitive answer to the dilemma of death.

In this regard, let me say a word about the incredible value of Catholic schools. Everyone knows, of course, that in Catholic schools we can talk about God and pray to him, students wear uniforms and have tons of homework, and in some schools there are still nuns and sisters who teach us about faith in God and also instill a little fear of God. Or, maybe they instill a lot of fear of sister. But there is something else besides God and prayer that Catholic schools teach, and bear in mind this is something we find missing from other schools. Catholic schools give their students an answer to the great dilemma of death. In Catholic schools, where the light of faith shines through every crucifix in a classroom, every rosary left behind in a pew, every pair of hands folded in prayer, students do not fear to “lean unceasingly over the abyss of nothingness” because what peers back at them is the loving gaze of Jesus, whose eyes are still reflecting the light from the dazzling white robes he wore at the Transfiguration.

Catholic school students do not cry hopelessly and they do not laugh lightly in the face of death; but rather, armed with their formidable faith, they simply look at death and wink. In a sense, non-Catholic schools are limited like the wisdom of the Old Testament with regard to dealing with death: death is simply the end; there is nothing beyond the grave. The Transfiguration, on the other hand, points to precisely what is unique and indispensable about Catholic schools because it opens up unimaginable vistas far beyond the grave. I do not mean to criticize or cause controversy, but it is a fact that both the Old Testament and other schools can only teach students how to make the most of this life; whereas Catholic schools help students make the most of this life and the next.

Sooner or later the cold hand of death will touch all of our lives: the death of a father like for Dylan Thomas; the death of a cat or a grandmother like for Lenny; or when we contemplate our own death when we “lean unceasingly over the abyss of nothingness.” If you look at death through the eyes of faith, however, you will see not the end of life, but only the beginning.

Praised be Jesus Christ!