My brother died on a Friday. But it’s third-day-complicated.

There was an apartment fire on Friday morning. Three people, including my brother, were missing.

The concrete upper-story floor pad had fallen on the bed where he was sleeping, so “finding him” wasn’t simply a matter of peeking in the room.

Saturday, we waited. Excruciating, inevitable waiting.

Sunday, they rolled the stone away, and we learned what we already knew.

Jesus died on a Friday. His brothers were in Jerusalem for the Feast. They must have heard, must have responded. I wonder how they spent Saturday.

Jesus was human. He had a family. Today, I share the grief of a brother.

Every person in the first century crossed the line between life and death, including Jesus. It was part of being human. We don’t need to be reminded that it still is.

Preparing to cross that [dead]line is also part of being human. We anticipate that death will change things. It will bring loss. It will also bring closure.

I have to wonder if Jesus looked at the twelve men around him and felt a sense of gravitas. He had been engaging in succession planning for three years.

• He had already communicated that he had come to fulfill the Law, thus bringing closure.
• The previous spring he had commissioned the twelve to declare the nearness of the kingdom.
• The previous summer, he began to speak of the end, though the disciples understood “dying and raising” as a metaphor.
• He could reasonably anticipate escalation of conflict in Jerusalem (since he was a wanted man for raising Lazarus).

In Jesus’ experience, he and his disciples refreshed Israel’s past by reading the Law every Sabbath day. When they read about the ordination procedures and dedication ceremony for priests, the practice reminded them of the inevitability of succession planning.

As Jesus sat with his men in the Ephraim wilderness and as he sat with his men this evening, the twelve vaguely anticipated ordination (echoing the priestly ritual) in a new kingdom. Jesus knew his dead.line loomed.