Would you want to know when you were going to die?
The date. The time. The place. The how?
I fear with a deadline of my mortality looming I would begin a panicked list, beanstalk high, of what I wanted to accomplish. The set in stone date would thrust me into a frantic productiveness, or hurtle me into a deep depression.
But do I really want to know?
Nope. Nada. No way.
Talk about anxiety inducing. Can you imagine the dread following hot on your heels as the date shadowed your every move like a grim specter.
Unless we languish as a death row inmate, we have no set date with our maker revealed to us—a true blessing in disguise.
William Van Poyck killed prison guard Fred Griffis. A prolific writer, this is an excerpt from his diary when the facts of his imminent death became real:
“I got little sleep the first week, perhaps two hours a night and then I was up and wide awake at 2 a.m., mind racing, thoughts all a-jumble, despite my best breathing and meditation techniques. I’d finally get my mind onto some mundane subject and then, bam, my gut would knot up as the thought suddenly elbowed its way into my mind, these guys are going to take me next door and kill me in x-number of days! This still happens a dozen times a day, and more at night.”
He was executed in 2013.
I cannot fathom knowing the way my death would unfold like–a tragic movie—a movie in which you know the ending by heart. All of life’s pursuits would become trivial in the face of death itself. Who cares if my OKC Thunder makes the playoffs. Or my car is dirty. Or my yard is weeded. Or my bed made…
Once his evil deed was done, Van Poyck had no choice in the way he would die.
Jesus had a choice.
At any moment in those final hours he could have walked away. Dusting off his hands he could have shaken his head and said, “Not doing it.” They aren’t worth saving— the spineless, betraying, liars and cheats…
He was sinless. So why should he be the one to suffer so? Because he was sinless his perfection made him the only possible sacrifice. He was a lamb before the slaughter, like the offerings required in Leviticus…”a lamb without blemish.”
What would it be like to know you had the choice to walk away, or step forward into unspeakable betrayal, sorrow and pain. And all for a stiff-necked people who conversely adored and reviled you.
The Jews, the very people who were chosen first—who praised you with one breath and cursed you with another—the people who had everything in their grasp, only to throw it away in a blinded refusal to see the light.
Even your closest companions—abandoned you flat.
Yet our Jesus, chose us. He wept for us. He thrust fear aside with a mighty heave, and sacrificed his life in the most horrifying way. A slow, agonizing, torturous death–hanging by nails that ripped his flesh. His precious blood dripped slow into the dirt below.
And with each drop of life flowing away from him—the river of red washed over us. And on that glorious third day, he flung off the shackles of darkness and rose to give us victory over sin and death.
The tomb is empty my friends.
And we will live—
Forever forgiven.
Forever cleansed.
Forever beloved and covered in His Grace.
So we can live fearless and free.