Birth and death enclose man in a sort of parenthesis of the present. And the brackets at the beginning and end of life are still impenetrable. This frustrates us, especially in a time of scientific breakthrough and exploding knowledge, that we should be able to break out of earth's environment and yet be stopped cold by death's unyielding mystery . . . Dairy farmer and sales executive live in death's shadow, with Nobel prize winner and prostitute, mother, infant, teen, old man. The hearse stands waiting for the surgeon who transplants a heart as well as the hopeful recipient, for the funeral director as well as the corpse he manipulates.
Death spares none.
That' s the bad news. At some point we all come to terms with the frailty of human existence, the uncertainty of life, and the pain and grief of loss. In the Gospel of John, two sisters Martha and Mary were in that situation when their brother Lazarus fell ill and died in just a matter of days. Good friends of Jesus, they called him to the bedside, knowing if anyone could help, it would be him. But he was delayed, he was too late, and Lazarus their brother was dead when Jesus eventually arrived at the little village of Bethany, just outside Jerusalem.