Latah Valley

You may assume that it’s all about life.   And you’d be right.  You may assume that when Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 and John 20 describe the empty tomb or the raising of Jesus from the dead that this amazing and emotionally charged story is all about life.  You may assume that, and then not devote another ounce of energy to the thought.  You would then be correct in equating resurrection and life, but you wouldn’t even begin to comprehend the depth of shock and awe that those disciples felt on this day.    

The Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, once wrote this simple confession:

“Had I simply understood that life had no meaning I could have borne it quietly, knowing that was my lot.  But I could not satisfy myself with that.  Had I been like a man living in a wood from which there is no exit, I could have lived; but I was like one lost in a wood who, horrified at having lost his way, rushes about wishing to find the road”  (A Confession, p. 22).

  

You see, the Bible understands life to have a meaning, and that’s the shock of it.   It has meaning and purpose beyond biology and genetics, beyond psychology and economics.  Life has meaning which transcends its own end, and that meaning for the Christian involves Jesus of Nazareth.   It involves the way he came, calling into question the way things are.  It involves the way he taught about the one lost sheep.  It involves the way he healed the outsider.   And finally, it involves his humility and his death upon the cross.   Life has meaning.   And the only question that remains is what people like us are supposed to do with that meaning.   Are we supposed to simply believe it and go to heaven when we die?   Or, is there some meaning thing to do here and now?

“On this mountain,” says Isaiah 25,

“the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food, filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.”

  

That sounds like a cool party, doesn’t it?   And maybe for the vast majority of people that’s a picture of the good life.  Who isn’t up for a shindig like that?   But verse six is very clear to point out that, as far as the Lord of hosts is concerned, the party will be “for all peoples.”  And to be honest with you, that’s kind of shock too.   More shocking than the fine wine that will be served or the food filled with marrow that will be consumed, is the notion that this feast is for everybody.

When I was a student at Penn State we had this memorable gathering of friends.  Not everyone was invited.  Just a few.   Just a select group of us had been drinking beer and playing poker.  But when Harry showed up with his sandwich from Subway, my roommate, Mike, and I looked at each other and knew what we had to do.   Harry had placed his hoagie down at the table, between us.  He then went into the kitchen to get a drink.  Upon his return, the sandwich vanished.   With a smirk he scanned the room.   Although we smelled like onions and salami, Mike and I shrugged our shoulders.   Well, when Harry had time to study our smug and self-satisfied faces, he went back into the kitchen, grabbed the fire extinguisher and proceeded to spray the entire party with a heavy shroud of white foam.   We chased him from the apartment and threw snowballs as he ran down the street.  

And, here’s the thing that sticks in my mind.   The last sentence that I remember somebody shouting as this exile ran from our party went like so: “You’re dead, Harry!   You’re dead!”   Ah, the good ol’ days… And I’m relating to you this bawdy reminiscence because, of all the pageants, parades, banquets and festive gatherings that I’ve hosted and to which I’ve been invited, that inebriated phrase still echoes.  It still haunts me:   “You’re dead.”  

  

Why?  Is that where every exclusive, members-only celebration is headed?   Is it really true that some of us will enjoy a great abundance while others will barely survive on table scraps—and then that’s it?  Are some just blessed with health, wealth and happiness while others get by on proscription medication—and then it’s over? 

  

Denise Levertov writes about a smartly dressed woman she observed at the cemetery, “a woman hurrying towards another grave/ hands outstretched, stumbling/ in her haste; who then/ fell at the stone she made for/ and lay sprawled upon it, sobbing, sobbing and crying out to it…”  

  

In a poem, called, Traveling Through the Dark, William Stafford writes about the carcass of a deer he found by the side of Wilson River road:  “her side was still warm; her fawn lay there waiting,/ alive, still, never to be born.”  Then after thinking hard “for us all,” the poet pushes her over the edge into the river.

And you see, something in me (something in us, I think) wants to agree.   We want to admit the edge of death, that point beyond which we won’t be able to think or to feel anything, that point beyond which Harry doesn’t matter.  He’s dead.   And yet, just when we assume that we know what life’s all about…

“And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever (Isaiah 25:7).  

  

Death, in this passage, is a power.  It may not seem like much to cover a person’s face with a shroud, or to encase it in a coffin.  But if you’ve ever been there you know how charged the atmosphere can become.  To spread a sheet over the corpse of man or woman in the hospital, over a living human being who only just last week looked you in the eye—that is an electrifying experience.    Death is a power.   And the infrastructure of death channels the guilt and the shame and the fear of generations upon generations.  Around the world and from culture to culture, death dictates the rules.   Death is a power.   But the text says that God “will swallow up death forever.”

  John’s Gospel, chapter 20, verse 5, says that when the beloved disciple outran Peter to the tomb he bent down and peered into the darkness, and he saw the only linen wrapping lying there…   and that was it.  That was it!   That was it!