So I hate to be morbid on a summer morning, but I want to talk about death in the gospel and in the homily this morning. Because we hear this in the readings. The first reading, death was not created by God. Also of course, in our gospel we get Jesus raising this little girl from the dead.

So death. What can we make of it, brothers and sisters? We all experience death in our lives. And I’m not just talking about literal death, you know, yourself dying, or maybe you losing a loved on or a friend or whatever it might be. But more like metaphorical deaths that we experience. It’s important to recognize this. So we all die, pretty regularly in fact. A fight that we might have, with a spouse or with a child, is a little death in a way. Changing jobs. Changing houses. Seeing the Chicago Cubs lose, right? All these things are little deaths that hurt us, and we experience in a way separation from God.

And in fact, there’s this term called desolation in the spiritual life. Desolation is when we experience a distance from God. Whatever we may be doing or praying, God feels he’s apart from us. We feel alone, isolated. And literally, that word desolation comes from the Latin the sun going away. Desolatione, the sun being hidden. The sun in the sky, but also the son of God. And so death is like a little desolation.

Now I think the message that we can take from today’s gospel is that when we experience death, to not let yourself be isolated. That is precisely where Jesus Christ wants to meet you, where he wants to be with you. We though, struggle with that. We don’t want him to come with us, we feel like we have to take it alone. Notice what they say in the gospel, the crowd approaches Jesus and they say, the girl’s already dead, just send him away. We don’t want him here in the home anymore. That’s not the right approach to take brothers and sisters.

Any little death that you have, again, whatever it might be, it can be something very small, something very large, bring Jesus into that. Pray about it, invite the Lord into that experience. Allow him to be with you, perhaps he might give you some insight, perhaps he might give you some healing, but either way, you won’t be alone. You’ll be with God Almighty himself, and he’ll turn that death, that desolation into a consolation. An experience of joy and beauty and ultimately of God. Your Good Friday will be an Easter Sunday, and death can be something beautiful. Amen.