Some time ago a man I know well died. I had gotten to know him over several years: his upbringing in a faraway land, his career in a caring profession, his courage and dignity in being prepared to walk with people whom the world despised and shunned, his faith and integrity, and later his struggle with life-threatening illness and the choices he had to make about the risks and possibilities of drastic treatment.
I know he died because he told me. He died on the operating table and remained dead for about 45 minutes. But somehow the physicians managed to bring him around and complete the ambitious procedure in such a way that, after some days, he was able to leave the hospital. A couple of weeks later I asked, “How’ve you been?” He replied, “I died a fortnight ago.”
But what he said next startled me far more. “I want to tell you what I saw when I died,” he said. “I saw Jesus clothed in white, with outstretched hands, and I saw myself being carried toward him by four people. My late father, late mother, and late brother were all holding me, the way we carry the body of Jesus out of the church in the Passion play on Palm Sunday. And there was a fourth person. The fourth person was you.”
