Beyond the Tomb

Readings: Psalm 118:14-24, Luke 24:1-12, Secrets of Heaven #5407 (see below)
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Photo credit: Simon Berger on Pexels

The Easter story in the gospel of Luke contains this unique and provocative question: Why do you look for the living among the dead?

On the surface of it, of course the women were looking for Jesus in the tomb. They had all seen him die, they had seen Joseph of Arimathea take down his body from the cross and put it there. Now they were returning after the Sabbath in order to anoint Jesus’ body according to their burial customs. They were trying to do right by him, and express both their grief and their care. But then they encounter some light-filled beings, who utter this perplexing question: Why do you look for the living among the dead? We can imagine the women saying to themselves; where else would we be looking for him?

In a cosmic sense, of course, this question points to what Jesus had been saying all along. For peace, joy, contentment, holy curiosity and gratitude, for all the things that make us alive and thriving and growing, why do we not look to God’s kingdom instead of the superficial values of the world? Why do we look for thriving amongst that which makes us small, cramped, desperate and blind? Why do we look for aliveness within that which destroys the heart and soul?

It is a rhetorical question, of course. We are human. We will be naturally drawn to that which is exciting, that which brings us power and wealth, that which is easy, that which makes us feel good in the moment. Why do we look for the living among the dead? Because we don’t yet know what spiritually whole living really looks like. We live into this knowledge and the answers are hard-won. We walk the path and pay attention and we ask questions and learn the difference between what brings us life, and what kills our spirit. So, it is not as if God is trying to shame us by asking this question. In the end, how were the women really to know? Yes, Jesus had predicted the resurrection but it was so very truly out of the realm of their experience. Could they possibly have believed it ahead of time? Would any of us have done so?

Rather, the question prompts us to look toward the following declaration: He is not here, He is risen. The women were looking for one thing and found completely another. They looked inside the tomb and it was empty. Jesus was resurrected from death to life.

What does that really mean? How do we make sense of these words? We try to make sense of it theologically by saying that God is able to take on death and bring out life, that God is able to bring goodness out of evil. This is truly amazing news, but it is important to make sure we are clear on what this means.

The resurrection does not transform evil into good. It does not introduce a relativism that makes everything okay. It is not a forgiveness of sins that is about a lack of accountability, or getting a free pass, or forgetting that evil exists, or making suffering magically disappear. In the words of Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan:

….Jesus did not die for the sins of the world…he was killed because of the sin of the world. It was the injustice of domination systems that killed him, injustice so routine that it is part of the normalcy of civilization.(1)

Injustice exists. Challenge and suffering exists. Human beings torment others and themselves, routinely. And we will all find ourselves on both ends of the equation to varying extents. With whatever power we have, we figuratively crucify the vulnerable around us, and we crucify the vulnerable parts of ourselves. For this, Jesus says “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” This is an unbelievable grace. God encounters our failings, Jesus takes them into his experience, and responds with forgiveness. We do not deserve this grace, and yet, it is given.

On the other end of things, we sometimes suffer undeservedly. Like the grieving, marginalized women seeking to simply anoint Jesus, we sometimes find ourselves in the tomb. We will find ourselves looking around and not seeing any light. What the resurrection communicates, is that we can know that there is something other than the deadness of human suffering. Why? Because God has made it so. God has declared that suffering does not have the final word; it will not define us or the world. This declaration has not made suffering good, it has not justified it, or condoned it. God is simply bigger, wider, more elemental and more real than than evil is.

We might think of the common advice: “For every cloud there is a silver lining.” Depending on when and how we might be hearing this, it might sound helpful, or insufferable. What people usually mean is that we should look for the hidden blessing within whatever is happening to us, look for the the good thing that has happened because of the bad thing that has happened. And this is a somewhat useful approach. Optimism and curiosity are important virtues. 

But this is only one way of looking at it, depending as it does on events happening in a kind of linear way, or the good thing being discernible or recognizable to us. But that is not always the way things go. Sometimes our clouds cover the whole sky, for a long time. Sometimes we suffer in enormous, pervasive and life-changing ways. How would it help that those kinds of clouds have a silver lining? Well, where does a silver lining come from? When we look up at the clouds in the sky, what is it that makes them have a silverly lining, or a bright-colored border? It is the sun shining behind the clouds that make them look like they have a silver-y lining. And what is supposed to be hopeful about that? It means that the sun is still shining. No matter how big or dark the clouds, behind them the sun is still shining unabated. In fact, the clouds have zero ability to stop the sun from shining. They may certainly get in the way, they may certainly make our lives seem cold and rainy and dark. But no matter what the clouds do, the sun is still shining. When we appreciate the silver lining around a cloud, we are acknowledging that fact.

It’s not that the clouds are becoming silver themselves. Nothing about the clouds actually changes. They are still heavy, or dark, or full of rain. It’s just when we see the silver lining, then we know something about what is beyond them, something higher, something bigger, something brighter.  We are not gaining a good thing that makes up for a bad thing; we are gaining knowledge about what is at the heart of things, even if we can’t see it in that moment.

And so it is with the easter story. Some powerful people took Jesus, someone just trying to make the world a better place for everyone, and they killed him. That will never not be an evil act. The resurrection cannot and does not change that. What we see in the resurrection is that such actions do not have the last word. The women found an empty tomb. Jesus did not erase what happened to him, wasn’t sitting there as if nothing at all had occurred. The tomb was empty. Evil or self-serving actions lead to nothing but emptiness. They are not generative, creative, connective or redemptive. Instead, Jesus would reappear to his followers outside of the tomb. Jesus leads us, and them, to see him elsewhere; in a garden, at a meal, in his wounds, on a beach cooking fish for breakfast.

Whatever kind of crucifixion is on the table, that in which we participate or that which is foisted upon us, God says that is not all there is. What the resurrection does tell us, simply, is that God still lives. In spite of thoughtless and sinful actions, in spite of the clouds, God heart is still shining for us, towards us, inside of us, and through us—always—calling us towards accountability, freedom, and life. Where will we find him? Not in the tomb. Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen. Amen.

(1) Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem, 161-163.

Readings:

Psalm 118:14-24
14 God is my strength and my song; God has become my salvation! 15 Raise shouts of joy and victory in the tents of the upright: The Lord’s right hand is doing mighty acts! 16 The Lord’s right hand is exalted; The Lord’s right hand is doing mighty acts! 17 No, I will not die—I will live to proclaim the deeds of the Lord; 18 Though God has challenged me often, I am not abandoned to Death.19 Open the gates of justice for me, let me come in and give thanks to you, O God. 20 This the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. 21 Thank you for hearing me, for saving me. 22 It was the stone which the builders rejected that became the cornerstone; 23 this is God’s doing, and it is wonderful to see. 24 This the day the Lord has made—let us  celebrate with joy!

Luke 24:1-12
1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words. 9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

Secrets of Heaven 5407
…In the next life 'life' generally means heaven, but specifically it means eternal happiness, while 'death' generally means hell, but specifically eternal unhappiness there, as is also evident from many places in the Word. The reason why heaven generally and eternal happiness specifically are called 'life' is that wisdom, which essentially is good, and intelligence, which essentially is truth, are present in heaven, and the life of such wisdom and intelligence is received from the Lord, the Source of the whole of life. But because the contrary of this exists in hell - that is to say, evil exists instead of good, and falsity instead of truth, so that spiritual life has been snuffed out there - what exists there, compared with that existing in heaven, is death. For spiritual death consists in evil and falsity, and it exists with humankind as the desire for what is evil and a consequent thinking what is false.