Leaves of Glory

I can smell the damp musty decay of the leaves that reminds me of my childhood. It is the smell of ground seeping through sheets of colored glory, moving them towards disintegration. It is the smell of raking with my hands, patting and forming my perfect bed of leaves. It is the smell of lying face upturned, of autumn sky and sadness and dreams, and a cold wetness staining the back of my clothes.

 As I stand, surrounded by heights of orange, red, yellow—leaves slow-dancing in the breeze, gracefully poised in stillness on the ends of thin limbs—I am amazed that there can be so much beauty in the midst of decay. That it is the very process of decay that gives simple leaves wild color strokes. How is it that the decay of leaves is so glorious—so memorable that I can smell its mustiness and be transported back to my time as a girl rolling, leaves clinging to my hair and clothes, in a leaf-bed—while the decay of our own bodies is a slow, sad song? It is pain and suffering and grief. It is watching the person you love turn into someone you don’t recognize anymore. It is standing there wanting them back, yet wishing them forward. It is not knowing what to say and crying when you’re done not saying it. It doesn’t feel like there’s glory in our death.

At least, that’s what my grief told me. I feel like I have never really known grief until this year, and now I have known it twice. Death knocked at my door and grief opened, unknowingly, but quick and fast. Death is recognized in the same instant that grief overtakes. They share the same moment, becoming intertwined and inseparable as they meet at that open door. It is the moment when you too feel as though you are dying.

In spite of this, in a strange and incomprehensible way, there was one death—perhaps one of the most horrific deaths of all time—that was simultaneously glorious.

“So Jesus said to them, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM…” (Jn. 8:28)

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (Jn. 12:32)

Christ was “lifted up” in a double sense: lifted up on the cross and at the same time lifted up in exaltation. For Christ, his death was his exaltation. It was in moment of his death that God himself was revealed—the one who is called “I AM” and who draws his redeemed to himself.

And this happened so that even though there doesn’t seem to be any glory in our death, there can be. It is a glory that we don’t see, and to be honest, that we don’t really understand. It is not colorful and musty; it is disheartening and painful. It is despair written on the brokenness of our bodies, sin carved in our decay. When we are close to Death, we see the Fall manifested and Glory feels far and unknowable. And that’s because the glory we ache for is not visible to us. It is, as yet, unseen, by those who remain here.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:16-18).

These verses feel perhaps hopeful when we read them before we do laundry or pack our husband’s lunch. They feel weak when faced with the reality of the cold, stiffness of death. Eternal, unseen glory? Yet my grandma lies scattered, and I’ll never hear her voice on the phone again singing me Happy Birthday. She won’t make us pancakes and gracefully accept our gift-offerings of blooming weeds, displaying them in a vase for all to admire. She won’t send us a Valentine’s Day card signed with her shaky handwriting or make us all line up before we leave for a picture taken with her disposable camera. She won’t shuffle down the hallway, looking in drawers for that thing she meant to give me, but can’t remember now. Eternal glory seems weak because it is not what I know and what I know is now gone.

Thankfully, that does not make it any less true. The only thing I have learned this last year as grief has made its home in the corner of my house is this: We really need a Savior. We need to be saved from this decay of the body that is not glorious. We need to be saved from the wrenching apart of body and soul that was not intended. We need to be saved from the inescapable grief that comes when we have to live without the one we’ve always known, or the one we didn’t know we could love so deeply. Redeemer, we need you.

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’

And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ (Rev. 21:3-5).