In the old city of Jerusalem, you’ll find the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the most holy site in all of Christianity. It’s a large church and was rebuilt many years ago. It encompasses all the alleged former ground where Jesus was thought to have been executed, entombed, and rose again during the events of Holy Week. Before the church was built, it was a rock quarry, and tombs were found there. When I went there on pilgrimage, I found its history striking, because it was so unlike the customs of the people that occupied Jerusalem and surrounds before the Romans razed it to the ground in 70 CE.
At that time, under Judean/Roman puppet control, the quarry was outside the original walls of the city. Clearly this was not the only purpose of the area, as I learned that the stone there was not of good quality. This made it easy to carve tombs into the earth and sandstone for burial purposes. Purity standards in Judaism prohibited people from touching dead bodies without taking certain ritualistic remedies. The notion of “uncleanness” surrounded the notion of death, an uncleanness that could make others unclean. Jewish Scriptural interpretation and teaching codified the appropriate means of caring for the dead.
Traveling to the Holy Land really got me thinking about what it means to follow religious practices and why we do it. I’ve found that much of what we call “religious practice” is, truthfully, authentically, an expression of someone’s preferred vision of reality, inspired by deep-seated feelings about the way the world should work, but doesn’t. There are just some things that occupy such a profound, powerful place in our hearts, our non-negotiables, and when it comes to religion, the faithful find ways to deal with that profound place by codifying it into reality, even if it isn’t precisely the word of God, even if other faithful people might think differently.
Take, for example, this practice of caring for the dead outside the walls of Jerusalem. Centuries after the fall of Jerusalem, when the Byzantine Empire responsible for the rebuilding of the city saw fit to surround, what for them, was sacred ground, with walls, and make it the most holy place in all Christianity, seems odd. I know it would have befuddled our Judean predecessors in faith. My first thought, as I stood there and marveled at the magnificence of the Sepulcher, was, what would Jesus think of all this?
So powerful was this notion of death making the living unclean feels to me like a very human thing, almost as if the Judeans felt a visceral reaction to the very idea of death. This almost certainly had to make the notion of resurrection extremely popular.
I sense this same spirit present in our city and our state right now, I mean, as much as I can, being an outsider. As I watched the Key Bridge tumble down on video, realizing so many spectators, particularly those on the cargo ship that caused the disaster, or on the bridge moments before the strike, might have been people alive during the construction of the bridge, perhaps having driven over it many times, and feeling utterly powerless to do anything about the disaster, I knew the stakes for Easter Sunday were enormous.
We can only speculate as to the horror, bewilderment, and confusion that gripped the followers of Jesus after the cross. Nothing would ever be the same. I can still remember feeling something like that after 9/11, and in truth, it did change everything. Right now, we have no idea what the coming years will bring to this area with the Key Bridge decimated. Depending on your vicinity to the disaster, you might not be feeling particularly strong feelings about it. I almost laughed when I started getting text messages from folks back in California that were asking me if I was ok and explaining to them that, yes, we were ok, because I don’t drive the bridge or live near it.
But I know many of you can remember the bridge being built, and what its existence meant to this area. With its collapse, vessel traffic in and out of the Port of Baltimore is suspended. 52.3 million tons of foreign cargo and 11.7 million tons of general cargo were handled in the port just last year. It was the busiest port in the nation for moving cars and light trucks. The Port generates 15,300 jobs, with something like 140,000 jobs linked to port activities. And it remains unclear how long it will take before vessel traffic can move again.
This is to say nothing of vehicle traffic of all kinds, immediately impacted. Or of how the rest of the country will be impacted. We live in a time of perpetual Good Friday. This is the effect that death has on the human mind. Some numb it, some despair, some refuse to deal with the pain until one day, it all becomes too much.
Resurrection is almost an affront to these feelings, which is probably why we don’t believe in it. Oh, I know, we have faith in the idea. But when we’re stuck in Good Friday, we can’t see Easter. I was taught that we should all expect to find resurrection in Jesus, and that’s a hopeful thing. But resurrection is not only a matter of hope, brothers and sisters, but a matter of time. When the women arrived at the tomb and found it empty, it wasn’t resurrection they suspected, but grave robbing. In today’s recounting of the story from John, Mary Magdalene sees Christ resurrected and suspects Him of being the gardener. She’s still in Good Friday.
If you’ve seen enough death, suffered enough loss, witnessed enough tragedy, it’s easy to lose faith in the promise of everlasting life. I imagine that when Jesus said that disciples had to carry their crosses with them each day, He wanted them to understand that being a follower meant shouldering these awful burdens each day while understanding that God helped us to carry them. Jesus called His disciples to believe that all this suffering would one day be set aside, that we had cause to hope in a brighter tomorrow. It is a cornerstone of our faith—we call it the future hope.
The Byzantine builders of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher expressed this hope when they enshrined the tomb of Jesus. It would be tempting to assume that they were somehow glorifying Jesus’ death given the finery in that place and all its memorials, but the church was built over an empty tomb. As I walked the Sepulcher and entered the Aedicule, the magnificent structure encasing the tomb, I marveled at the domed ceiling. Instead of a closed-off dome, a large portal was cut there with a view of the sky. It brought tears to my eyes. Someone had cut hope into the ceiling.
Like Jesus’ disciples before us, we are expected to put our faith in the resurrection, to live as if it is true. Faith alone cannot help you believe in resurrection. There is no ritual, no tradition, that can convince your heart that death is temporary. But as I stood on the Mount of Olives, and beheld the rolling hillside dotted with graves, facing the Old City, I began to appreciate the future hope with new eyes. The dead are buried there with their feet pointing to Jerusalem, so that when the resurrection comes, they can rise and walk straight to the Temple. Yes, the place is a mass cemetery, a place of death, but oh, the bright hope found in such a tradition! These people expect their loved ones to rise one day!
Brothers and sisters, the enemy of our faith has no face except our own, no strategy except the one we carry out. We have been trained to believe that the best we can hope for in this world is to live and die well. We are intoxicated with the need for immediate gratification. This perspective leaves no room for resurrection, but rest assured, resurrection is coming. Every winter, I watch temperatures plummet and the plants all around me act as if they are dead. Then spring comes and changes all that. I have experienced extreme loss in my life. Then I met my wife and children, and all that changed. Winter comes each year. And not every day with my family is a good one. But I know that as long as I keep my faith, time will have its due.
The bay will be cleared. The port will reopen. Our lives will change. But we will be reborn. Give thanks to God for Jesus on this day because the Lord has taken special time to remind us that new life is possible after death. Smell a flower. Admire the buds in the trees. God has shown us what is possible.
Let your hope be built on nothing less thank Jesus’ blood and righteousness. Do not dare to trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand. Amen.