Why do you seek the living among the dead?

“Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.”

Thursday night was the night of betrayal – of trial, however illegal under Jewish custom and law. The end of the Holy Thursday liturgy indicates it’s a pretty bleak event. The altar is stripped of decoration. The priest covers the Hosts with his cope as though to protect the sacred body, and no hosts are left in the front of the church. The congregation leaves without exchanging greetings, without speaking. Just leave.

“Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised?”

On Good Friday, the trial that mattered – never mind legalities, a trial was legal if the Romans said it was.  Jesus is scourged. Scourging was, in and of itself, such a severe punishment that many did not survive it. He is stripped of his own clothes and is dressed in purple. Purple was a symbol of royalty, and this is a mockery of Jesus, King of the Jews. A crown of thorns is placed on his head. If you’ve ever been pricked by a rose’s thorn, you can imagine the pain and humiliation. He is beaten. He is spat upon. And when the mob is presented by Pilate with a choice – Jesus or Barabbas? – they shout for Barabbas to be released. As for Jesus? “Crucify him! Crucify him!” is the demand of the mob. Many of the members of that crowd were, doubtless, among those who greeted Jesus triumphantly just a few days earlier. Now: “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Guess I can’t preach to them. Would I have been any different? Would you? “Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do.”

They compel him to carry his own cross. And they crucify him, between two thieves. And he dies. This death was not like any other that anyone had seen. From about noon to three, darkness covered the face of the earth. Just before his death, Jesus cried in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”  When one was crucified the cause of death was usually suffocation, but thirst would not have been far behind. It was not a quick death; with no intervention to speed the process some would hang on the cross for days before merciful death came. Jesus cried with a loud voice. That, in and of itself, would have the Roman soldiers, who had likely seen dozens of crucifixions and who knew the expected course and outcome, wonder “Who is this? It seems like he commanded even the moment of his own death!” And then there was that bit about the veil of the temple being torn, top to bottom. Indeed – who was this? WHO??

No doubt, he was dead. That spear, and the blood and water flowing, clinched that. No doubt he was dead. He was buried by his own followers, in a new tomb in which no one had been buried. He was wrapped in burial cloths. A huge stone was rolled in front of the tomb.

He was dead.

One definition of death is that it’s the separation of body and spirit. That definition comes from Greek philosophy. This definition indicates that we have paid lots of attention to Plato, but not so much to the Hebrew Scriptures. In Jewish thought death meant the complete destruction of the individual – complete immolation of body and spirit. Once you were dead you were gone. More than once in the Psalms the Psalmist asks if God could receive any praise from the dead. It seems that the writer takes for granted that the answer is, “No – once dead, we are gone.  Completely.” The concept that there may have been any sort of personal immortality doesn’t arise until late in Old Testament times.

Jesus was dead. And yet. . .and yet. . .

“Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.”

Can you blame the women for being afraid? Wouldn’t we have been? And they didn’t understand immediately what was going on. Would we have?  In fact, the writer of the Gospel According to Mark left it at that. The original ending was the end of verse 8. Everything after that was an addition. “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

John Shea wrote a book called Stories of Faith. Toward the end are three poems, one of which is The Storyteller of God.  Every time I read that poem I choke up at several points. I won’t put the whole poem here. I will recommend strongly that you look up a copy of that book and read that poem. “He is not here, but he has been raised,” has meanings that are brought out by the passage toward the end:

A stone the size of twelve men

moved like a mountain on its way to the sea

and on the fresh wind of morning came the Son of Man,

his shroud a wedding garment,

his feet between earth and air in dance.

Death, Sin and Fate poured rhetoric

into the stirring air about them

but the silent Son of God only danced

to music beyond their words.

He whirled around Death

and with each turn

Death himself grew old

til with a last unbelievable look

he saw no more.

Then wordless

Christ spun around the words of Sin

til a stammer started, sound choked,

and finally there was only a mouth

without a voice.

Next Fate heard the risen footsteps

And frost formed on his tongue.

As Christ leapt before him,

he froze in mid-syllable,

iced by the warmth of God.

Now

there was only the morning

and the dancing man of the broken tomb.

The story says

He dances still.

That is why

down to this day

we lean over the beds of our babies

and in the seconds before sleep

tell the story of the undying dancing man

so the dream of Jesus will carry them to dawn.

He is RISEN!!! He is risen indeed!!!!