Jesus is Dead

Descent from the Cross by Van der Weyden

Jesus is dead. His body is wrapped up in linen cloth saturated with spices and ointment, buried in the tomb of Joseph, the Arimathean. His family, friends, and followers weep.

My question to us this Holy Saturday is -- what if he remained dead and buried? What if he's just another dead Jewish prophet, long forgotten in history? Leaving behind not a timeless, far-reaching global legacy, but a small group of disillusioned, frightened followers cowered in their hiding places?

What would your world, your community, your family, your life be like if Jesus remained dead, on the metanarrative and personal level? Let's allow our imagination take us there in a vivid way.

It'll be worthwhile for all of us, atheists and people of faith, to reflect on this today, and to revisit it every Saturday after Good Friday and before Resurrection Sunday -- imagining our life in a world with a dead and buried Jesus with none of his resurrected legacy.

Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.   

Luke 23:50-56

Sunday Thoughts

Stormy Sea Breaking on a Shore by JMW Turner (1845)

This is the third Sunday of being sheltered-in-place here in Chicago. A cold, blustery, overcast day in March. I am finding Sunday to be the best day of the week for me during this time of lockdown. Perhaps it's because it is the Lord's Day. Not that the rest of the days of the week do not belong to God, but that it is the day set aside for us to rest in our resurrected Lord Jesus whose love and power remain with us to this day. This rest in him and his promises is especially needed during this Covid-19 pandemic. I need to take a break from the constant barrage of newsfeed, to find mental and emotional rest in casting my anxieties and cares on the Lord of the Sabbath. I need to take time to refocus, to take in his light and his calm in order to replenish the light that has dimmed within me through the week and to still my growing anxious heart. 

Now that most church services are streamed online, I am finding solace participating in  worship at some of my favorite churches; and in the process, finding connection and belonging that transcends distance and time zones. Covid-19 has ironically made church much more available to those who might not otherwise darken the door of a physical church. 

How we "do church" has drastically changed in the past weeks, as has how we "do life". Tragic in so many ways, but hopeful in others. But "do" we must, with church as with life. Doing it within our new confines yet somehow making it count far beyond our new limitations. I am inspired by the remarkable ingenuity, creativity, energy, and determination of people across the world, to not only make the best of our situation with the coronavirus running amok,  but also to defy the devastation that Covid-19 has wrought. As the virus seeks to decimate our health, economy, and communal bonds, we need to stay hopeful, for the alternative is despair. 

Wherein lies your hope?

Invisible and lethal is covid-19, invisible and powerful is our God. 

And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger.  And they went and woke [Jesus], saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm.  He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

Luke 8:24-25 

Word for 2020!

Sunrise in Lincoln Park

Hope is my word for 2020! Having a word for the year is a new undertaking for me. Something that I was reluctant to take up when my friend Darlene first suggested it to me. How can one little word interest and impact me for a whole year?

But as it is, in these early days of January, since its inception in my head, that one minuscule word "hope" has helped shape the moments of my day. Life is after all lived in increments of moments. I'm not saying that I'm always aware of the word, but having adopted it, like an underground water channel to shrubbery, it's been giving verdancy to my day,  

Hope helps me start my day with the right perspective; hope provides excitement as I  study it from a sociological, theological and literary perspective (a year-long process, I would imagine); hope gives me hope when circumstances look unpromising; hope draws me closer to God who is the ultimate source of lasting hope.

Hope, at its basic level, is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen; the feeling that something desired can be had or will happen; or the feeling when we do not know whether something will happen or not, but want it to happen. All of us need hope in one form or another to carry on with our day, especially when life is uncertain, unhappy, or unfathomable. We should never ridicule hope of any kind, but wish for everyone to have reasons to hope. We recognize the devastation the absence of it can have on our existence.

Hope followed by the preposition for and in, I believe, are the underpinnings of our lives. In hoping for something, we find reasons to live. In hoping in something, we find strength to live. They are equal forces that cannot be separated in order for life to take off and have equilibrium, like wings to a bird. In short, the objects of our hope come to define how we live and ultimately who we are.

My wish for me and my loved ones this year is that we will have hope; and not just hope, but hope for and in objects that will shape and sustain us to live intentionally, abundantly, compassionately, and fearlessly.

What is your word for 2020?