Tombs

I was affirmed a couple of times for this devotional I offered during our Thursday office meeting. Here's a slightly modified version.

Something I’ve been thinking about over the past week is how we as Christians would usually be celebrating the end of Lent this weekend, but in a way, we’re heading into an extended season thereof. We won’t really get to physically emerge from our tombs until an unknown date in the future. Our next doughnut will not be next week.

I could wax philosophical about emerging from our metaphorical tombs, but I don’t really want to go down that road right now.

A passage of scripture that has presented itself to me multiple times this week is:

There must be no competition among you, no conceit, but everybody is to be humble: value others over yourselves, each of you thinking of the interests of others before your own. Your attitude must be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

     Christ, though in the image of God

     didn't deem equality with God

     something to be clung to—

     but instead became completely empty

     and took on the image of oppressed humankind:

     born into the human condition,

     found in the likeness of a human being.

     Jesus was thus humbled—

     obediently accepting death, even death on an execution stake.
Philippians 2:3-8

I appreciate this translation because it highlights Jesus’ solidarity with humanity, especially those who are oppressed. It portrays Jesus as the image of God, as we all are (Genesis 1:27). And it speaks to some of the most frightening parts of being human—the human condition, in all its uncertainty, and the knowledge of our own mortality—and that Jesus faced all of this, too.

When Jesus was crucified, his friends were not expecting him to rise on the third day.

They hid from death in locked rooms.

Their uncertainty over what to do next must have been crushing; they didn’t know if they had anything to move toward or look forward to. They were paralyzed.

I’m going to read John 11:17, 21-24:

When Jesus arrived in Bethany, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. When she got to Jesus, Martha said, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died! Yet even now, I am sure that God will give you whatever you ask."

"Your brother will rise again!" Jesus assured her.

Martha replied, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."

I feel somewhat like Martha in this situation, having faith that coming out of the tomb is in the cards, albeit far in the future. What I want to highlight is the uncertainty of the time within the tomb. Even though we will be in a Lenten season for more than 40 days and we are in our tombs for more than three or four days, those four days must have felt like an eternity to those who loved Lazarus, those three days forever to those who loved Jesus.

What happens during the eternity of the tomb? How do hearts change? How does the uncertainty of the resolution change the responses to life restored, since it wasn’t clear if and when it would be?