I had to go to a funeral today. It was a terribly sad situation, in which a father of two died suddenly. The family thought they’d have more time with him than they did.
I walked to the church in the pouring rain, thinking about the suffering of the mom and her girls, and of Jesus’s crown of thorns. It certainly felt like a crown-of-thorns kind of day, with pain pressing in, relentlessly, all around.
But the thought of that circlet of suffering brought another headpiece to mind, Paul’s “crown that will last forever” (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). I thought about how the father of this grieving family had won his eternal diadem, while the mother and children were given the thorny one. And it seemed that the two crowns—one of suffering, one of joy—were in some way one and the same, because they both were Christ’s. It was as if Jesus had gently placed his hand on each member of this family, leaving the imprint of his crown on their heads.
I held that image in my mind for a while, of Christ with one hand resting on the living and one hand on the dead, sharing his suffering and his glory. And I gave thanks.
