“A Tomb Overflowing”
John 20:1-18
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
Easter Sunrise – 2016
In ancient
Israel, proper burial is first and foremost a matter of respect for the dead. And
while the last witness of a life well-lived is the community’s loving committal
of the body, those who die with blemished reputations can expect their bodies
to be treated accordingly. Willful contempt of the Torah, malevolence in
leadership, lack of compassion for the poor, such failures follow a body in
death.
“I will fling you into the
wilderness,” says Ezekiel, “…you shall fall in the open field, and not be
gathered and buried. To the animals of the earth and to the birds of the air I
have given you as food.” (Ezekiel 29:5) This is but one of many such
warnings.
Secondly, proper burial preserves
the holiness of the land and the purity of the people. This concern applies
especially to executed criminals: “When someone is convicted of a crime
punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse
must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for
anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that
the Lord your God is giving you…”1 (Deuteronomy 21:22-23)
These customs
lie behind Mary Magdalene’s desperate lament: They have taken [his body from the tomb], and we don’t know where they
have laid him. She says this twice.
Then, a third time, when facing one
whom she thinks is the gardener, Mary begs,
“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I
will take him away.”
You may hear something entirely
different in Mary’s plea, but I hear her saying, Mister, please, if you took Jesus’ body, just tell me where it is. I
won’t tell anyone that you moved it, and I’ll put it where the unfriendly
beasts cannot devour it and scatter it.
I’ll
put it where it can return, slowly and gently, to the holy earth from which it
came.
Easter. Just
saying the word makes me taste hard-boiled eggs. It brings to mind the bright
colors of spring, the warmth of lengthening days, and the exultation of
birdsong. I am beginning to think, though, that maybe Easter should also taste
like compost. Maybe it should smell and feel like the rich, spongy rot on a
forest floor. It seems to me that the church has focused its attention so exclusively
on the empty tomb that we are missing
an invitation to stand in awe of a tomb overflowing with new fullness the way a
compost bin overflows with fresh fertility and brand new life. To hear and
respond to that invitation leads to transformation, the kind of transformation
that makes Jesus say to Mary, Stop. Don’t
touch me. I’m different now. Everything is different now.
Have you ever
had a dream about death? Death dreams seldom leave us unchanged. Composting the
experiences and emotions of our waking lives, all dreams story us toward new understanding
and healing in our sleep. Rather than serving as omens of catastrophe, death
dreams invite us to recognize some aspect of our lives that is undergoing
transformation, or which needs to be transformed.
Often dark and
forbidding, death dreams are kind of like tombs – but maybe they are most like
Jesus’ tomb, places of revelation, places of healing and even redeeming
fullness. And our best response begins with grateful awe. To analyze, evaluate,
and reduce the Easter tomb or a nighttime dream to one conclusive meaning or
formula is to sterilize them. It is to miss their fullness. It is to seek hope
in emptiness.
I had two
death dreams last week. In the first dream I walk past two tents. They are
dark, and slightly wider than they are deep. They are on my right, and are open
on the side where I walk. They are stacked full of human bodies lying on tall beds
or tables. One or two bodies are dying. The rest have been dead for quite some
time. The grotesque scene upsets me deeply. It overwhelms me. As I step over the
dark shape of a woman’s body crumbling into earth, I cry out to all of them,
“I’m sorry!”
The next
moment I am turned around and walking the other direction. The tents, now on my
left, have changed. They are exactly like the tents that sit in this very spot
during the Storytelling Festival. They are open all around, bright and
welcoming. An older couple sits at a table, eating peacefully.2
In my second
dream, a roof leak is causing ceilings in my house to disintegrate. The house
is also burning from the inside as if from its own energy. This concerns me at
first. Finally, though, I just leave the house. Let it drown. Let it burn. Let
it die. I just want to start over.
Naming a dream
is one way to relate to it, to honor it, and learn from it. I cannot decide
whether to call that second holy week dream Baptism
by Fire or Baptismal Burnout.
Both are accurate.
Together, those dreams reveal transforming,
resurrection truth that I think is challenging me to live a livelier and more hospitable
life. That will require of me repentance, renewed gratitude, and better self
care. I will need to let go of some things, things that often bury me beneath dead
expectations and life-diminishing habits. Living the new life Jesus offers
always means dying to old ways that feel comfortable and secure.
Virtually
everyone who works with dreams as a spiritual discipline says that dreams are
given by the Dream Giver as signs of healing and hope for the dreamer. Even
death dreams and nightmares reveal the heart of God for the dreamer. They
reveal God’s own dreams for us.
My family, you, and I all need me
to have and to honor those particular dreams at this particular time.
Maybe Easter is like waking up from
a death dream, like waking up after having been shown something transforming,
something that stories us in new directions. Now, we will use words to tell our
dreams and our stories. Words help us to express and embrace our wonder, joy,
and hope. Words, however, are helpless to explain
Resurrection. And if I try to use words to prove Resurrection, I will really
miss the mark. I will have tried to confine the Holy Spirit inside my own
biased language.
Easter and dreams both call for
more than words. They call for relationship, for a new, grateful, and generous
life response.
With that in
mind, maybe we do better speaking of Jesus’ tomb not as empty but as spacious, a place overflowing with grace, a place –
like Narnia inside that wardrobe – that is infinitely larger on the inside than
it is on the outside. The deaths we die, figuratively and literally, serve as
entry ways, openings, transformed and transforming beginnings. Ultimately, you
see, we follow Jesus into his tomb to live.
“Listen,” says Paul, “I will tell you a
mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the
dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed…When this perishable
body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then
the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in
victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’” (1Corinthians
15:51-52, 54-55)
Into what newness
of life is the ever-rising Christ composting you.
Into what unexpected and spacious
fullness is God Eastering you today?
1For a general discussion on ancient Jewish traditions
regarding death and burial, see: http://www.craigaevans.com/Burial_Traditions.pdf
2This sunrise sermon was preached outside in the beautiful
park behind the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, TN.
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