Empty Tomb

Human beings have a tendency to see what they expect to see. Various psychological studies have shown that people “fill in the blanks,” they see what they are conditioned to see and may completely miss something that is unexpected or out of context. That might be a good insight to keep in mind during this Easter season. What do we see when we peer into the empty tomb?

When we hear the Gospel stories we hear them like people who know how the story ends. We’ve seen this movie, we know how it ends. We jump ahead and anticipate the resurrection. We know it is Jesus on the road to Emmaus, we know it is Jesus whom Mary mistakes for the gardener, we know what it means when Peter peers into an empty tomb. We rush headlong into the resurrection, we aren’t confused, we don’t ponder or wonder or stand amazed, we know.

From our place of certainty it is easy to misunderstand the reactions of the disciples. We think they are obviously rather slow on the uptake for failing to instantly understand the reality of the resurrection. Why did the male disciples dismiss the reports of the women that the tomb was empty? How could the disciples on the road to Emmaus not recognize Jesus? What on earth was wrong with Mary Magdalene that she took so long to recognize Jesus? But perhaps what we have the most trouble recognizing is our own lack of understanding of the truly radical nature of the resurrection.

The resurrection was more than simply the resuscitation of a dead body. Jesus was not brought back to life the same way Lazarus was. Something different, more profound, more radical has happened. The empty tomb means that God is acting in history in a way that our minds cannot even comprehend.

The first disciples could not immediately recognize Jesus because God was doing something completely new, completely unexpected. It was only in hindsight that they remembered Jesus’ cryptic clues. Then as now hindsight is 20/20. The disciples were being called on to see something that they had no context for, something that pushed them beyond all previous boundaries and understandings. Jesus had died but he was still among them. The power of the Roman Empire and the religious establishment had conspired to kill Jesus and his nascent proclamation of the Reign of God. But the power of God burst the human limitations that could only see death. The tomb, and its reality of death, was turned inside out.

The strongest tomb most of us will encounter is not made of rock. It is made of our preconceptions, our assumptions, our arrogance and short-sightedness. Like the disciples we know exactly what we are going to find. We know how things work, we know what to expect and we can see only what we have been conditioned to see. But the resurrection means that the power of God is right here, right now, in front of ours, turning reality inside out. The empty tomb is all around us, but can we see it?

Scars After the Resurrection

Since tomorrow we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension I thought it was high time to reflect on some of the Easter stories in the Gospels, “Doubting Thomas”, the road to Emmaus, Mary Magdalene at the tomb and others. I’ve heard these stories so many times before but recently I noticed something that I hadn’t seen before.

Many of the stories feature the disciples examining the hands, feet and side of Jesus to examine the scars of the nails and lance. This helps them see that he is not a ghost or a figment of their imagination but he is indeed truly risen from the dead. The stories focus on the corporeality of Jesus, now the risen Christ.
One day I realized, “Wait a minute, Jesus is resurrected. What do you mean he has scars? He’s resurrected, doesn’t that mean perfection?” There was a fundamental incongruity I had never noticed before. Here is Jesus who has conquered death, and yet he still bears the scars of torture and death. Somehow that doesn’t seem quite right. Resurrection should mean that everything has changed, all the reminders, tangible and intangible, of death and pain should be wiped away. And yet the disciples keep touching the scars. Jesus, who is the Christ, the resurrected Son of God, bears the marks of death.

So what does that mean for those of us still living in the reality of everyday, pre-resurrection life? What does the fact that after the resurrection Jesus retains the scars of death mean for us who are still living in the midst of this life? What do Jesus’ scars say to those of us travelling towards resurrection, struggling in the here and now to attain the full stature of Christ? Somehow this bothers me. I want to think that the power of the resurrection in our life means that we shouldn’t have scars, we should be able to be healed of all our pain and be completely new without any reminders of our suffering, our limitations, our wounds.

But perhaps the fact that Jesus still bears his scars is actually a sign of deep hope. Perhaps the scars of the resurrected Christ tell us that even as we grow, change, mature and are being re-made into the image of God our scars remain with us as powerful reminders and testimony to who we are, to how God made us. The reality of the resurrection is that new life happens, God’s power works within us, but we are still our fundamental selves. The power of resurrection in our lives means that we are transformed but we don’t get personality transplants, God gives us new life in the context of our old life. I am changed and healed, my wounds are no longer gaping holes but reminders of God’s work. The reality of Easter is that I am changed but the scars remain to remind me of God’s transforming power.

Here in the monastery this means that we are all slowly, haltingly, in the process of living into the reality of the resurrection. We try to be open to God’s transforming power. We struggle to manifest the grace God freely gives. But we all bear our scars. I try to be open to growth and healing but my scars are reminders to myself and everyone who lives with me that I won’t be perfect. As much as I change I will still be who I am and I will still get on some peoples nerves and have more than my share of limitations no matter how much I change. In turn I will see all our sisters who are also struggling with what it means to manifest the power of the resurrection in their lives and I will see their scars. I will experience how much they have changed and how far they still have to go. They will get on my nerves and be as limited and broken as I am.

But maybe the ultimate meaning of these stories is that each of us becomes Christ for one another. In community we are being called to be the presence of Christ for one another and put our hands into the scars of each sister who is Christ for us. We put our hands into one anothers scars and know the reality that our deepest wounds are also the tangible proof that God’s love conquers the power of death in our lives. By Christ’s wounds we are healed, in our own wounds and the wounds of those around us we touch the reminder that the power of the resurrection is at work in our lives.

What Happened the Day After the Resurrection?

What happened the day after the resurrection? The day after the world had turned inside out, when death no longer reigned, when God became present and we touched his hands. On that same day the same sun came up as it had yesterday morning when we lay in the dark shards of our despair. On each day, when the world ended and when it began anew, it was the same sun, the same birds, the same creaking bones and growling stomachs and sour morning breath of the disciples.

What happened on day 732,920 after the resurrection? The same sun came up as it had the morning when the world was turned inside out. It was the same sun, the same birds, the same creaking bones and growling stomachs and sour morning breath of the disciples.

This is monastic life. Life lived on two levels. It is life centered on Christ, centered in the earth shattering news of the resurrection, in the paschal mystery that repeats in our little, insignificant and unnoticed lives. Every day is an extraordinary realization that God is alive and in our midst and dwells with us. And every day is also like the one gone before, stretching into infinity, an endless horizon of ordinariness and monotony.

People ask, “What do you do all day in the monastery?” We live simultaneously at two extremes of the human condition. It is an ordinary life of living with the same people you like or don’t like, day after day, year after year. It is an endless round of chores and work and meetings that repeat until you no longer have the capacity to do chores or work or go to meetings. But is also a life that is a call to stop, listen, be aware. Here, now, today is the day after the resurrection. Death is no more. God is in our midst. Each moment is a moment of eternity, a moment of grace.

Of course it is not just our elders who suffer memory loss. The twin poles of eternity and everyday life do not have equal weight. We are always being dragged down into the inertia of forgetfulness, the fog of grayness and complacency. The same people, same routine, same surroundings grate tenaciously against our soul and blind us to the reality that every day is the day after the resurrection.

But ultimately monastic life is about creating structures that fight against the loss of wonder. Monastic life is designed to make life simple, uncomplicated and focused on God. It is not an easy life. But it is difficult for different reasons than most people would imagine. It isn’t difficult because of celibacy or lack of money or even living with so many other people not of your choosing. Monastic life is hard because it is designed to limit all our excuses for not staying focused on God. We structure our life to eliminate the “if only’s…” If only I didn’t have such a demanding job… If only my family responsibilities weren’t so great…. If only I were younger…. And each of our “if only’s” ends with saying “then I would certainly be a more spiritual person, then I would truly seek God with all my heart.”

No, you wouldn’t. When you come together in a life beyond the normal family responsibilities, without the striving of the competitive job market, a simple life without many possessions, you find new distractions, new ways to become complacent, new ways to focus on imagined difficulties and insults and ways to feel important. It is hard to live a life focused on God. We long for God as for the sun in the midst of night but shield our eyes and look away when confronted with noon-day brightness.

In monastic life we live a paradox. We live the most ordinary, unexceptional life, a life reduced to the basics in order to do the most extraordinary, to live every day like it is the day after the resurrection, the day when the world turned inside out and we finally saw that God was in our midst. But paradoxes are hard to hold. Like two magnets they are twin poles that resist coming together. We resist being able to see with new eyes, we shield our eyes from the light that threatens to blind and transform us, that burns and peels the thick skin that cannot feel the touch of God. We yearn for the easy anesthetic of the ordinary, of our comforting gray lives, our pride and control that keep us from being broken open to experience the power of God.

So people ask, “What do you do all day in the monastery?” I tell them that every day we get up, watch the same sun rise, hear the same birds sing, experience the same creaking bones and growling stomachs and sour morning breath of this motley group of disciples as we did the day before. But every day, even if just for a startling moment we realize: God is alive, in our midst, the world is made new and we along with it.