Can You Hang On For Three More Days?

I volunteered with a suicide prevention hotline in college and was working one Good Friday when a sobbing woman called. As trained to do, I said encouraging words (“It’s okay” “Take your time“) until she could share what was going on.

“Jesus was crucified today.”

Literally, that’s what she said. At first I thought she was punking me. But then I realized she was seriously in need of hope, that life was rough/overwhelming/excruciating and that Good Friday was as good a day as any to add the death of Jesus to whatever crises her life was enduring that day. She continued to weep.

If she was faking it, she was an excellent actor. I’m talking dying animal sounds.

I have made my own dying animal sounds. There have been moments when I felt alone and hopeless. It’s a horrible place to be. Jesus is a part of that story for me too but the context was different.

On the day I took the suicide prevention call, what I wanted to say was:

“Can you hang on for three more days? I promise it will get better.”

(I foolishly thought her biggest issue was Jesus dying on the cross.) I don’t remember if that’s actually what I said, but honestly I said something like that, and I wasn’t being flippant. Surely, this woman had heard the end of the Holy Week story – that crucifixion was not the last word.

But sometimes, we simply need to wait for three days.

Some agonies indeed pass in a matter of days. Our perspective improves with a good night’s sleep or a helpful therapy session or a weepy phone call with a friend.

And sometimes the pain feels endless. It feels impossible that we can ever recover and find peace. It’s cruel to tell someone in that kind of pain to “wait three days.” Today I’m thinking about . . .

• The countless victims of assault at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, along with tens of thousands of others who have been assaulted by tens of thousands of other abusers.
• The innocent people living in war zones (and other zones like schools and hospitals that only evil agents would attack.)
• The people weeping in the throes of psychological and physical illness in our personal circles and all over the world.

It will not help any of them to say, “Can you hang on for three more days?” Three days will – most likely – not make a difference in the overwhelming tragedies that burden millions of people every day.

Nevertheless, we who call Jesus our Savior find hope in those three days.*

This is our calling. We are called to be with our friends when they are making dying animal sounds. We are called to accompany people as they pick up the pieces. We are called to pick up the pieces with them.

God has done this for us. We were born to do this for others. And we don’t have to wait until Sunday to step up.

*Note: It seems like Jesus rose in just two days in our current way of counting. But in ancient Palestine “inclusive counting” marked three days from Jesus’ death (he died Friday before sunset which was Day One) from sunset Friday through sunset Saturday (Day Two) and rose in the morning of Sunday – so after sunset Saturday (Day Three.)