Getting older comes with all kinds of surprises, most of them not so good. There is the natural slowing down that happens to everyone, but there is also a random lottery of “you may be a lucky winner” blindsides that simply suck. I had one of those a few weeks ago when I had a minor stroke. The disconcerting out-of-control, out-of-body, slightly blurry feeling is bad enough, but not knowing why it happened, where it came from, and when it might happen again simply adds all kinds of excitement to the experience. However, in my case, the stroke was a bit of a Godsend. In running all the tests for the stroke, it was discovered that I am battling an infection in my lymphatic system, and two different doctors have framed my stroke as “a stroke of luck.”

Now, I want to be very careful here. I am going to make the leap from my own circumstances to Good Friday, but I am in no way equating myself with Jesus. What happened to Jesus was way worse, and what it happening to me is happening because I am twice as old as Jesus was at his death, because I don’t take proper care of myself, because I eat like an eight-year-old left home alone, and because I dust my treadmill more often than I walk on it. Not because I am divine. But the connection that’s occurred to me is that without Good Friday there is no Easter. Without the deceit and betrayal, the rejection and the oppression, the persecution and the prosecution, sentence, torture, crucifixion, and death, there is no atoning and restorative resurrection. Getting anywhere near the good sometimes requires going through the very worst.

This is normal. This is natural. Life contains within its glorious frame the highest highs and the lowest lows, and there really is not an appropriate place to ever ask, “Why me?” We cannot experience the grand and amazing beauty of the creation without appreciating the role of fires, floods, hurricanes, mud slides, earthquakes, and droughts. The renewal of the earth is often violent and catastrophic. The renewal of a human body can be likewise. And the salvation of all humanity? Yep, it’s going to hurt.

This is not to dismiss the pain, grief, anxiety, loss, and terror that comes with global disaster or personal tragedy. Some change is glacial, some slamming tectonic. Some is subtle, some outrageous. Some temporary, some lasting, all disruptive and disconcerting. Yet. Necessary.

My personal test of stroke and infection is a definite learnable/teachable moment; it has occupied a lot of my time and attention. It forces me to examine many aspects of my life – my eating, my sleeping, my working, my attitudes, my patience, my faith life, my relationships, my future, and my past. This list grows day-by-day, minute-by-minute, but my approach has been “what can I learn from this,” rather than “why did this happen to me?” Focusing on finding meaning can take us two very different directions. One offers the appealing option of adopting a victim-mentality, feeling sorry for myself, getting angry at all the things that don’t work the way they once did, cursing God for allowing old age to hurt, hang, and smell as it often does. This is easy, and oh-so-attractive. It is a complete abdication of personal responsibility and a fundamental misunderstanding of this gift called life.

The other pathway is one of enlightenment, a coming to grips with the truth and reality of our brief time on earth. The phrase that has become my mantra in my meaning-making is “in the grand scheme of things.” In the grand scheme of things, my stroke is no more than a brushstroke. My infection is a nanoseconds inconvenience to the grand scheme of things. Pain and suffering can overwhelm in the instant, but hardly registers in the grand scheme of things. Nothing I am going through now, in the past, or in the future makes a tiny ripple in the grand scheme of things. And the grand and glorious scheme of things will roll along regardless of my presence or absence in it. One hundred years from now what will my impact be, in the grand scheme of things?

This is where my story is so very different from the story of the last week of Jesus’ life. Holy Week with all its highs and lows, challenges and blessings, defeats and victories completely revealed and redefined “the grand scheme of things.” By our faith in God and God’s will, Jesus IS the grand scheme of things. Everything that is, everything that should be, everything that is possible is the scheme of our creator God. What happens in our daily lives is not nearly as important as how we respond to these things. Tragedy and loss are painful, but they are also opportunities for us to rise above our limitations, to become the very best we can be for one another. By our faith and by God’s grace, we can make sure we never face our challenges and trials alone. We live in the absolute assurance of God’s grace because of Good Friday, Dark Saturday, and the glory of Easter morn.

What has been reinforced for me these past few weeks is this: don’t be in such a hurry to race to Easter. Victory is great, resurrection is amazing, the defeat of death pretty exciting, and the glory of the Lord really fun to bask in, but it doesn’t come without a cost. In fact, we cannot truly know the value of Easter without counting the cost of Good Friday. When we put it all into perspective, to realize what life could be without Easter, it offers us a powerful glimpse of what life truly means — in the grand scheme of things.