It
was sundown, and the Sabbath was over. Shops
reopened, merchants began once again to hawk their wares, and three women crept
out of their houses. None of the three wanted particularly to go out—they would
have preferred to remain holed up, penned in by grief, remembering the horrific
events of the day before. In their grieving
weeds they bought the necessary spices to anoint the body of their beloved, which
was not an inexpensive thing. But though they didn’t have much between them,
they felt it was their duty. Little did
they know that this simple act would fuel endless speculation, for anointing a
man’s body was normally the domain of
his wife.
Be
that as it may, and in spite of any marital relations or non-relations, nobody else was going to do it, and
the women were determined to do their best. Of course, that could have been the end of it, all they
could do. After all, of all Jesus’
followers, they knew what they were up against.
The others, all the men except Joseph of Arimathea, had washed their
hands of the affair, they’d abandoned the beloved in his greatest hour of
need. Peter—good old, mouthy Peter—had
even denied him not once, not twice but three
times, although the women didn’t know that:
he was so ashamed, so mortified
that the didn’t tell anyone until
years later.
So
the women—the two Marys and Salome—knew better than anyone what stood in their
way: a great, big, humongous stone. And as
they stole out to the tombs on that long-ago Sunday, so early that even the dogs were still twitching in their
sleep, dreaming of bunnies and chicken dinners, that’s what was on their minds:
how are we going to move that great, big rock?
But
of course, that turned out not to be a problem.
As they approached the tomb, they saw that it had been already rolled
away, and don’t tell anyone, but they were both excited and disappointed. Excited,
because they would be able, after all, to fulfill their duty and disappointed,
because . . . because they would be able, after all, to fulfill their duty. It was not a pleasant task—the whole purpose
of doing it was to disguise the smell
of putrefaction, but it was the third day, and that ship has already sailed.
But what was most daunting was
the prospect of seeing their beloved’s body, and opening once again doors of grief
that hadn’t yet been sealed.
You
see, as good Jewish women, they didn't believe in an afterlife, not a specific
one, anyway, and so for them, dead was dead, there was no coming back. There was no Jesus, looking down on them from
on high, watching benevolently over them, he hadn’t gone on to better things in
the sweet by-and-by. He was simply … gone.
And so, in their deepest heart of hearts, they actually counted on finding the stone in the way,
so they could have said “oh well . . . We did our best,” because let’s face it: the dream was over, and to see his
body would have been painful beyond belief.
And
now, they’re confronted by this dark, yawning . . . hole, and they don’t know
what to make of it, who moved the stone?
Was it grave robbers? Was it a rival
messianic faction, bent on humiliating them even more, stealing their beloved and parading his body around the
Jerusalem streets? It might even be
dangerous, maybe they shouldn’t even be there . .
But
they couldn’t resist, it was like something was pulling them, inexorably,
toward the tomb . . . was it was the pull of the divine, the pull of the numinous? It was almost like pieces of their own
selves, their own souls called out to
them, reaching out to them, making it impossible to resist. But when they peered inside, they saw nothing
like what they expected. Instead of their
dead beloved sat a living young man,
a boy, really, and they immediately thought of the equally young man who’d run
off naked at Jesus’ arrest . . . Was it he?
It both looked like him and didn’t . . . and if it was, he was dressed
better—and less embarrassingly—than he was that first time . . . in fact, he it
was all in white, and they simply gaped in wonder, because they knew what that signified, but he didn’t look any more holy or heavenly than they did . . .
But
before they could reflect on what it all meant, the young man spoke: “Do not be
alarmed,” he said, but that mule had
left the stable as well. They were rooted to the spot with fear. He crossed
his legs fastidiously and cocked his head, peering at them like a querulous
grandmother. “Do not be alarmed,” he insisted
again. “You are looking for Jesus of
Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.” He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Look, there’s the place they laid him.” And even though they were
stunned into silence, the women caught the gist of it . . . he was gone.
I
visited an old African American woman during one of my hospital rotations in
seminary . . .she’d been a holiness preacher for fifty years, for half a
century she’d labored in the vineyards of the Lord, and now here she was, the
victim of a stroke, on the fifth floor of Grady Memorial Hospital in
Atlanta. She talked about her life, her alcoholic children and cheating
husband, and her church which, despite her being a preacher and all, wouldn’t
let her divorce the guy because they were agin’ it. Her life was full of
great heartache and acute joy, and she represents as well as anybody what we
celebrate this day . . . her greatest joy was a trip to the Holy Land she’d
scrimped and saved over the years, and she told me about the time she visited
Jesus’ tomb, and her voice was urgent, immediate, as if she were reliving the
experience “I walked up to that tomb,” she said, “and I stuck my hand all
the way in – it wasn’t very big – and there was a sign on it said ‘He is not
here,’ and you know what?” I said “What?” And her eyes got big and she whispered
“He wasn’t!”
He wasn’t there. Not for Mary and Mary and Salome, and not for
that sainted old holiness preacher in Grady Hospital. And despite all the talk you hear, about
being with us in Spirit, about how we are his body and he the head, he isn’t
here for us, either. Not in bodily
form, anyway. And we’re such a
materialist culture, that it’s hard for us to believe in something we can’t see
right in front of us, something we can’t reach out and touch, like Thomas the
Twin in the upper room. Oh, it’s a lot
easier to believe in, to trust a
God we can’t see, that we’re not supposed to see. That God is the eternal creator, and we have no
problem believing in him, because we know just where he is, and it certainly
isn’t here. But he’s not supposed
to be, is he?
I’m not talking about intellectual belief,
the classic intellectual assent to a set of propositions. I’m talking in the full, ancient-Greek
meaning of the term, which includes a large dollop of trust along with it. Many of us, and I include myself here, have
trouble trusting what we can’t see, and though we’ve been told he is
risen, and is here with us as he promised, he can’t walk up to us, shake our
hand, and tell us what he wants us to do.
And so we—many of us, not all of us—believe it cause the Bible
told us so, but continue on trying to do it all ourselves, to save ourselves
and our church, instead of trusting that he is still with us, that the Spirit
is still with us, and will guide us.
That is why most discernment strategies, including
the ten-week class of last Spring, start
with an inward journey, a spiritual dive into ourselves, a journey with which many of us brainy Presbyterian types are uncomfortable. I think we are looking for Christ in all the
wrong places, because, as I said a few weeks ago, even if we don’t know where
on the outside, we can be sure that he is inside us, in
our psyches, in our beings, in our hearts.
Well. The
young man at the tomb was going on about about Jesus going on before them, and
how they were supposed to go and tell the disciples—and Peter, God was
apparently still ticked off about that whole denying three times thing—they
were supposed to go tell them about all of this, but they didn’t, they ran off
without telling anybody, in terror and amazement. In fact, I wonder if they heard anything after
the “he is not here” part. I probably
wouldn’t have . . . How could they wrap their minds around the wonder, the
impossibility of it all? The women ran
off, seeing only that he isn’t there, and after they’d seen him laid there with
their own eyes, it was enough to shake them to their bones.
Sisters and
brothers, Jesus wasn’t there in the tomb with the three women and the
young man, and he still wasn’t there when the holiness preacher stuck
her hand in. But I know where he is, and
you do too. Even if we can’t see him or
touch him or reach out to him, we know he is here, all we have to do is look in
the right place. Happy Easter! Amen.
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