Even if it means I'm here
Nearness with the God who died
This, I think, is what death is.
It is a river. A cold river, shrouded in mist and fog. You can hear it as you approach, hear the rushing of its water and the strength of its current.
We live on one side of that river, you and I. It’s full of flowers that bloom and trees that die. It’s terribly wonderful and wonderfully terrible.1
And for all of us, at some point, we cross the river.
The crossing can happen in a lot of ways. But for a Christian who knows it’s coming, it’s something like this.2
She begins walking towards the river. As she gets closer, the path slopes, dipping down. Those she has loved on this shore join her, helping her walk, talking of all they’ve seen together.
Everyone knows that the crossing will happen. That’s not the question. When, yes. But more than that—how.
Lord, let her do it with courage. Let her do it with peace. Let her do it with faithfulness.
Lord, help the crossing.
Every breath is a prayer. Every thought is stayed on the crossing.
They reach the shore. Sometimes they all stand in the shallows, feeling the icy water against their feet and shivering despite themselves.
But only one of them can keep going. Everyone else watches, waits—straining their eyes for a second figure in the mist.
For Christ guards this river. He stands in the middle, waiting for each of his own who must make the crossing. Sometimes the fog hides him from view, and the cold strength of the river is all that’s visible.
Those who wait on the shore watch, barely daring to breathe. Their loved one—how much they love her!—wades into the river. Light curtains of fog drape over her.
And oh—oh. Christ is there. He reaches for the small one (they always look small in the river) and pulls her towards himself. Her steps are steadied. They speak to each other, though none standing on shore can quite hear what they’re saying.
And they cross together.
Fog billows across the river. The other shore is hidden from sight. Christ and his redeemed fade from view, swallowed in the whiteness.
And those standing on the other shore stand there still, watching.
A few months back, one of my friends sent me “Where You Are,” a song from Sight & Sound’s production of Daniel.
The main refrain throughout the song, sung by an exiled Daniel at the beginning of his captivity, is "I want to be where You are—even if it means I’m here.”
It’s captivated me ever since I first listened to it.
Isn’t nearness to our God something we want? We want to be where he is, where his light touches, where his glory shines—
And where is that?
Humans have spent all of history wrestling with that question. I’ll be the first to say that I’m not somehow gifted with knowledge that no one else has.
But I do know that when Christ was lifted up for all the world to see, it was on a cross.
If this is where he is found, then maybe we must be there. He is the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. You cannot know someone intimately without knowing those they, in turn, know as well.
Yes, he rose! Yes, he conquered!
But Gethsemane came first. Golgotha came first. We are told that if we have died with him, we will live with him—that those who are crucified like Christ will also be raised like Christ.
If we have died. Those who are crucified.
I am standing on this broken shore crying out that I want to see Christ, and he is standing in the middle of the river, waiting.
Some condolences don’t condole very well. Sometimes, when a well-meaning person tries to share words with someone who’s suffered, they wind up making it sound like life is some giant scale.
(
wrote beautifully about this here, and some of this imagery is inspired by her.)Grief goes on one side, joy on the other. Loss on one, gain on the other. We separate all the good from the bad, and we see which one is heavier. Whenever we add something on the bad side, we have to scramble for things to add on the good side.
“At least—but—well, you know—”
Yes, I know. Even though she’s gone, God is with us. At least we know where she is. But she had such a wonderful life.
That’s not how it works.
In the mystery of God’s story, pain is not something that we have to cancel out with happiness. It is not something divorced from joy or foreign to peace.
Sometimes, it is the road. Sometimes, it is the guide.3
Sometimes, it is the river, flowing dark and cold, in which the Son of light stands waiting, calling his beloved home.
Christ still stands in that river. As those who brought their loved one to its water stand, aching in the loneliness left behind, he is there. He is close.
Even now. Even here.
The temptation to run—to flee that river until the sound of its water comes only in our dreams—can be overwhelming. It is still so cold.
And Christ is here.
Could it be that by staying, we are found? Could it be that we find life through death, joy through grief, peace through fear?
I want to be where You are—even if it means I’m here.
God, grant me the courage to sing that prayer.
Thank you, Maggie Weaver.
Using female pronouns here for both clarity and to honor a specific person who recently made this crossing
I want to be careful in how I say this because I’ve heard it said wrongly too. Pain is awful. Grief is awful. There is nothing in and of itself about any of this that is good. It’s not that we find beauty in the pain; Christianity does not call us to suddenly become sadists. But redeemed pain, grief with hope, can and do lead us to the God who is in our pain. There are still tears and suffering and darkness to walk through, but it’s only the first chapter. It’s a chapter we need to read to understand the rest of the book—but not the end.
This is beautiful.