04/17/2022
Lynn Murphy Mark
His birth was a miracle, but much easier for me to grasp than what we celebrate today. A baby is born under peculiar circumstances; a star shines steadily to guide poor local shepherds and foreign magicians to see him and his parents. This I can understand. Like Mary, I have gone through hours of labor as my own miracles entered this world. She and I share that experience.
Much of this holy man’s life experience is hidden from us. We rely on writing from followers of his – often this writing occurs decades after his untimely death. And most of it chronicles the three short years during which the most astounding events occurred. He healed the sick, he raised the dead, he taught the multitudes precious life lessons.
We have quotations of words from his mouth that sometimes baffled people then and now. He spoke in parables, in stories that made sense to some and infuriated others. He was not afraid to speak his Truth, even when he knew well that powerful authorities would object to his revolutionary sayings.
All of this I understand. I imagine the agony that overcame him on Good Friday. I can see his beloveds taking his body from the cross, carrying it to quiet little room carved out of stone. He would have been anointed with precious oils and the tears that fell from beloveds’ eyes. The Prince of Peace no longer able to express his love for them must have felt like a huge, painful loss. I can see the men struggling to roll a huge stone to cover the entrance to his burial chamber.
Then they all scattered to their private places of mourning. I have been there too. Suddenly there is a gaping hole in the chest, and it is unclear what will ever heal and fill that broken heart space. But what was coming was unimaginable.
The next morning, the women who loved him most went to his gravesite, presumably to mourn and pray and comfort each other. They were as much his disciples as the twelve men who had sometimes straggled behind him trying to understand where they were going and what, exactly, this man was capable of?
I can imagine their astonishment at the gaping opening of the tomb. The rock ledge where his body had been carefully laid was just that – an ledge holding a crumpled shroud and nothing else. Had grave robbers disrupted his peaceful resting place? Why? And the inevitable question: where was he? They looked all around, but the only other being there was a humble gardener. The women ran to find their companions, carrying this perplexing news. Where was the Lamb of God?
Having been a hospice nurse for many years I have been present at hundreds of deaths. I have seen the light go out of someone, and I know that the light now shines somewhere else. I have prepared bodies to be transported on a long journey from deathbed to grave. I know very well the stillness of death. I know the finality of it all. But what I don’t know is what it took for Jesus to rise from his tomb, defying the laws of nature. Except maybe that law that says matter can neither be created nor destroyed. This phenomenon has a name: The Law of Mass Conservation.
This law helps me to know that, in a manner that is actually beyond all understanding, the energy that was Jesus was transformed – not destroyed, just changed – into a presence that tested the faith of his followers. Ultimately, I believe that this is what Jesus’ main purpose was: to challenge belief systems and to invite us into this Paschal mystery.