Part of the cross-shaped life of being a Jesus-follower seems to mean there are seasons when things are going fine for you, but what you carry in your heart is the fact that that’s not the case for other people you care about.

People around me are dealing with death in one form or another. One friend is disconsolate at the loss of his brother. Another is simultaneously grateful for each day’s healing from cancer, but aware that with his form of cancer “day to day” means, well, “day to day.” Another friend just now begins his journey into chemotherapy’s dreadful dreamscape of pain and wondering. Yet another watches her marriage dying, wondering what this unraveling means for her and her children’s “participation in Christ’s sufferings.” One of my sons sits on the bench watching his coach believe that others — but not he — will eventually produce, if given a chance; meanwhile, a dream dies.

No wonder, as Athanasius (see my last CGO blog) observed, pagans dreaded death. No wonder Gnostic Christians, whom Athanasius so strongly opposed, sought a romantic release from embodiment.

The pagan world into which Jesus stepped was as schizophrenic about death as ours is. Read more