Holy Saturday: Life from Death

There was nothing especially uncommon about that week in Jerusalem. Jesus was not the first messiah to appear and gather followers. Jesus was not the first man to threaten the establishment of the Temple. Jesus was not the first rabble-rouser to be arrested by the Roman occupying force. Jesus was not the first man to be crucified, nor was he the last. Jesus was not the first person to die.

But sometime Saturday night, something extraordinary occurs.

Behind the heavy stone sealing the tomb, the Spirit is at work. When morning comes, the body of Jesus will be gone and his burial shroud neatly folded. What exactly occurs in the dark of the borrowed tomb we may never know or comprehend, but the result changes everything.

Death — once the end of everything — is no longer a barrier.
Death is vanquished.
Death is meaningless.

During the night, a spiritual calculus is performed. A single sacrifice pays for the accumulated sin of all humanity for all time and the slate is wiped clean. As Paul would later write to the Romans, "...We have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life."

Jesus overcomes the grave and death itself to free us from sin. I don't know how that math works. I don't know how the sacrifice of one man can liberate an entire species, but I am humbled to think that my soul is worth dying for. The mystery of that depth of love will forever captivate me with its beauty.

Good Friday: Forsaken

"Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" - Mark 15:34

Humans are strange creatures. We are petty, we are cowardly and we are untrustworthy. We lie, cheat, steal and kill our brothers and sisters. But the thing that truly defines us is our mortality. No matter who you are or how much money or power you might have, you cannot escape the inevitable. Our whole lives are spent outrunning death...until we grow weary or are caught off guard.

I don't know about you, but I'm terrified of death. I don't understand it. I don't understand why we lose the people we care about, one by one. I don't know if anything lies beyond the final breath or the last flicker of electricity in the brain. I don't even like to think about it.

Tonight, I have to think about it. Tonight, Jesus died. He was tortured and nailed to a cross where he hung for hours, bleeding his life out from the wounds in his hands and his side. He was sent here for this; to die. I know this story, but it is still painful to be reminded of it.

Over the past week, death has hung over every aspect of my life. One of my professors, a man I considered a friend and mentor, died suddenly in his sleep eight days ago. The anniversary of another friend's death is next week and I know other friends have suffered similar losses. It feels like the whole world is dying.

And I'm supposed to believe in a resurrection?

I don't know if I can.

Like the disciples at dusk on Friday evening, I'm lost. I'm forsaken. I'm not sure how to function anymore. The idea that all this death could have some purpose seems trite. This night, I must wrestle with the grave; struggle with its meaning. Tonight, my savior lies in a tomb, betrayed by his friends and savagely cut down by the same people who praised his entrance Sunday morning.

"Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?"

Easter Sunday: Our Resurrection

Your friend's body is missing. His burial clothes are neatly folded in the empty tomb, but there is no corpse. You run to tell your friends, who are in hiding, petrified with fear that they will be the next ones to hang from a cross. Everyone runs back to the tomb, where two luminous beings in white are sitting where the body had been laid. "Why are you weeping?" they ask.

According to the Gospel of John, the disciples did not yet understand the Scriptures saying that Jesus must rise from the dead on Sunday morning. They thought someone had stolen the body and I imagine they were crushed. One last defeat in a terrible week that had turned everything on its head.

Imagine then, your surprise when one of the men in white softly calls your name. It's Jesus. Alive and well after you saw him suffer and die. He's alive!

Everything changes this day. Easter is not merely a celebration of a miracle from 2,000 years ago. The Resurrection has implications across the universe in all times and all places. For through Jesus' death and return from the grave, we are forgiven from all of the sins which had previously condemned us. All of our debts are settled forever. Jesus died for you, so that everyday, we might be resurrected.

We die and if it wasn't for this sacrifice of love, we would never come back. By all reasonable arguments, we don't deserve it. But God isn't bound by rules. God breaks the rules. Death is no longer a one-way street. We can return, even when we are dead to the world. Through Jesus' crucifixion, he has bought us new life.

The fate of everyone changes today, because of a sacrifice that we can't even begin to wrap our heads around. He died so that we could live. And that changes everything.