Beyond the Graveyard

The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” (Luke 24.5)

The Third Day

We know the story all too well, which is only proper, as the entirety of our faith hinges on it. The disciples are struggling to absorb the blow of Jesus’s sudden execution. They’re hidden out of sight, fearful they may be next. Before dawn on Sunday, a group of women venture out to Jesus’s graveside with spices to preserve His corpse. His burial was a hurried affair. Since He owned no tomb, one had to be borrowed so He could be laid to rest before Sabbath’s sundown. In the dim shadows of early light, the women return to complete their task. They find the stone guarding Jesus’s body pushed aside. He’s gone. Two dazzling figures appear out of the blue, terrifying the women. The messengers can’t figure out why they’re there. Jesus repeatedly told them He would be executed and rise again three days later. It’s the third day. They ask the women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” (Luke 24.5)

We can forgive the women their confusion. They’ve just witnessed their beloved Teacher’s gruesome death at the hands of their political oppressors, sanctioned by their religious leaders. In the midst of their grief, they face the hard reality that they are, for all practical purposes, enemies of the state and religious rebels. The rush to bury Jesus left their work undone. The men have gone underground. And their worst nightmare—that someone might steal Jesus’s body, perhaps as a cruel prank to visit further indignities on Him—appears to have come true. How can we possibly expect them to be clearheaded? They’re just doing what they know to do, following ancient tradition that burdens women with preserving their loved ones’ cadavers. Urgency and grief leave no room to think things through.

The Gospels’ compressed accounts of the Easter story leave the impression that everything happens quickly: Where is Jesus? He’s not here. He’s alive! Let’s run back to tell Peter and the rest of the guys. But that question—Why do you look for the living among the dead?—can’t be glossed over. It needs time to sink in. As the sun edges over the horizon, it dawns on the women. Of course. Why would we expect to find Jesus here, when He emphatically told us He would rise on the third day? This is the last place He’d be. What were we thinking?

Shadows

Why do you look for the living among the dead? It’s a question that won’t go away—particularly for those of us who find ourselves on the outs with the political and religious establishment. Our association with Jesus raises suspicions. We answered His call to follow Him. Yet we suffer intolerable sorrow as we witness constant attempts to mangle and destroy His gospel of unconditional love. Some of us go underground, fearing we’ll also be victims of religious hatred. In defiant grief, many of us summon false bravado that induces us to withdraw completely from the community of believers. Who wants to go where they’re not wanted?

But there are just as many, if not more, of us who fall into the same patterns that brought the women to an abandoned tomb. Although we don’t fit traditional molds, we persist in trying. We do what we’re told and risk whatever it takes to get the job done. So we travel silently in predawn shadows, taking care not to draw notice from anyone in a position to challenge our faith. We worry about not completing unsavory tasks that diminish our value. We fear the worst—that we’ll look for Jesus only to discover He’s been stolen from us. Broken-hearted and confused, we end up in a graveyard, ready to offer Jesus what He doesn’t need.

Even if the men mustered the nerve to accompany Mary Magdalene and the rest to the tomb, it’s doubtful they would have gone. Dressing corpses is women’s work. As it turns out, that’s not the work Christ needed them to do. Their spices and traditions are useless. When the reality of what’s happened finally dawns on them, the women are tasked with delivering the news of Jesus’s resurrection. This is a radical reordering of gender roles that many struggle with to this day. Had these extraordinary women slunk back into the shadows of tradition and fear, the Easter story might never have been told. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Why indeed.

Free to Live

If we allow the Easter story to start and stop with Jesus and the disciples, we reduce it to a magical tale that ends with “they all lived happily ever after.” This unprecedented event is designed so that all who embrace it by faith will likewise live happily ever after. To get there, however, we have to break our addiction to shadows. We have to stop looking for Christ among the dead. Trips to the graveyard, no matter how sincerely they’re undertaken, get us nowhere. The Jesus we seek isn’t there. He is alive and well and present among the living.

In Romans 6, Paul tells us, “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. The death He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (v9-11) “Dead to sin” means “free to live.” Jesus accomplished this once… for all. Easter lavishes on us a fully inclusive faith that defies every demeaning label and tradition. The instant the stone rolled away it took the need for shadow-living with it. No believer has any cause for fear or shame. We are all free to live out our faith with boldness and clarity. So let’s put the spices away. Let’s forget our anxieties about being found out and settling for second-best. Let’s quit trying to do for Jesus what He doesn’t need. We answer a call higher than adherence to ancient tradition and religious exclusion. We have been entrusted with the unassailable truth of resurrection. We are alive to God. This is our story to tell and we can’t proclaim it until we realize the graveyard is nowhere we want to be.

If our search for the Risen Christ finds us clinging to shadows and abiding by demeaning traditions, we’re looking in the wrong place.

Post-Script: Benediction

Today marks Straight-Friendly’s 1001th post. When I began nearly five years ago, I had no idea where it would lead. I certainly didn’t anticipate this little project would bring so many blessings to my life, forging tremendous spiritual bonds and lasting friendships with so many kindred spirits. I cherish every one of you who have supported this effort with your prayers and encouragement. And I’m grateful to know the work we’ve done together in this place has helped many who were struggling to find their place in God’s kingdom.

Crossing this major threshold on Easter Sunday, it seems a fitting time for Straight-Friendly to take its leave. There are new areas of ministry I hope to explore, fresh horizons to seek out. While my heart will always remain with each of you, I feel myself being drawn to people and places the blog hasn’t reached. Setting it aside will provide time and energy to do that.

Should the time come to resume S-F—or set out on another online adventure—the first thing I’ll do is publish a post here. Meanwhile, I hope to stay in touch with as many of you as possible via Facebook, email, and other means of contact that have held us together all these years. If you’ve not found me on Facebook and care to, I encourage you to look me up.

I love you more than I can say. I’m grateful for all you’ve meant to Straight-Friendly’s success and to me. I hold each of you in my heart and pray God’s bountiful goodness will find you at every turn as you seek God’s will in all you do.

Now, to the One Who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of God’s glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. (Jude 1.24-25)

Many, many blessings always,

Tim

Dying to Live

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12.24)

Easter expects us to believe the most supernatural event ever recorded in history. A man is tortured within an inch of his life and nailed to a cross, where he’s exposed to the elements for nine hours, bleeds out, and eventually suffocates beneath the pressure of his weight. His body is rushed into a borrowed crypt, with a massive stone and two guards placed at its entrance to prevent grave robbers from stealing his corpse. (There’s some wild talk predicting he’ll rise from the dead. So it’s best all around to ensure his burial site isn’t tampered with.) Two days later, his friends return to check on the grave and discover the stone has been moved and his body is missing. That’s when they learn that he has indeed come back to life and freed himself from the grave—an amazing feat for a man of uncommon physical strength, let alone someone whose body has been ravaged and who was undeniably dead.

That’s the story and if we’re to believe in the power of Christ in our lives and the world, we have to believe that’s what happened. We can puzzle out all sorts of alternative scenarios. Yet none of them satisfy. Maybe Jesus never died; maybe He lapsed into a coma and His disciples assumed He was dead. But if He was buried alive, how could someone in His condition muster the strength to push back the enormous tombstone? Maybe He was dead and His followers managed to abscond with His corpse. Then how do we explain the random sightings that occur in the weeks after His resurrection? Maybe the whole thing was a hoax. Then how do we explain why this myth has survived two millennia? On some level, this story was, is, and will always remain very real. And for us to benefit from all that it represents, we must retire our logical skepticism and accept its supernatural mysteries by faith.

What’s most interesting is that, six days prior to His death, Jesus explains the mechanics of His resurrection in the most mundane natural terms. He compares the process to a planting cycle. A wheat grain is buried in the ground, where it dies, and resurges to abundant life that produces more grain, which in turn will be buried, die, and yield even more life. In this context, the Resurrection is the most natural occurrence known to humankind. Although we don’t understand the actual phenomenon, the concept of dying to live is one we encounter every day. It’s what puts food on our tables, fills our gardens with beauty, and provides shelter in the shade of vast trees and lumber we use to build our homes.

As we anticipate tomorrow’s Easter celebrations, we listen closely to Jesus’s explanation, because He expands His story to include us. We carry in us the seeds of His resurrection. We are the fruit born from His death. And we must also die so that we too can bear fruit. How does this work? We can’t really say. All we know is it happens in us just as surely as one wheat stalk yields hundreds of grains that are sown into the ground, die, and resurge into new life that produces exponentially more grain.

It is the most natural process we know. Yet it is also the most supernatural transformation we can possibly experience. Our faith is perpetuated by willingness to release ourselves from the fear of death and all that it triggers: hatred, competitiveness, insecurity, materialism, and every other life-limiting woe we cling to in hopes of survival. We arrive at the empty tomb, astounded by its miracle, while also realizing the very thing that perplexes us is at work in us. We are dying to live. The resurrection phenomenon doesn’t end with Jesus at Easter. It resurfaces every day in our lives, in every moment when we refute the fear of death by placing love for others alongside love of self and love for God—the Creator Who ordained this astonishing life-death-life cycle—above all.

First

God proves God’s love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5.8)

As Lent beckons us to Calvary and our thoughts turn toward the cross, I’m reminded of the hymn that says, “Oh, how I love Jesus/Because He first loved me.” Of all the facets of divine grace exemplified on the cross, the realization that God loved us first is the most dazzling for me. It is a decisive love, a love offered in hopes that it will be returned. But we can never forget that Jesus decides to die a criminal’s death with no promise that His love for humanity will be rewarded. It’s more than a selfless act of compassion. It’s a huge gamble—the most extreme risk a person can take—which makes it the ultimate act of faith.

And we should remember that this sacrifice is not without hesitation. Moments before He’s arrested, Jesus begs God to release Him from this fate. Because we’re governed by flesh, we interpret His prayer to be a plea to save His own skin. Like every human living under Roman oppression, Jesus has seen the horrors of imperial torture and crucifixion. In Jerusalem, Calvary is the site for frequent executions. As with other cities where potential for insurrection is high, the Romans select a spot at the edge of town to erect a grisly display of supreme authority. The crosses of Calvary stand as a warning to anyone traveling to and from the city: there is no mercy for anyone who bucks the system. Jesus knows well what torments await Him after He’s taken into custody. Then, because we know how gruesome His death is, we put two and two together and assume Jesus is asking God to spare Him from the extreme brutality He will suffer.

But might there be more to Jesus’s hesitance than escaping agony? One has to imagine a bigger question looms in His mind. Will dying be worth it? The mortification of an unjust trial, public mockery, being whipped within an inch of His life, and then hoisted onto a cross is supposed to result in our awakening to God’s boundless love. Yet there are no guarantees this will be the case. Given how much derision He’s faced in life, the odds don’t favor such an eventuality. It’s more likely He’ll die and be forgot, like every other troublemaker who meets his end at Calvary. Crucifixions happen all the time. Why should Jesus’s be any different? “Take this cup away from Me,” He prays—as if to say, “Don’t put Me through this for no reason.” It’s a huge gamble.

Jesus’s great assent—“Not My will, but Yours be done”—is more than accepting the price He will pay in His flesh. It’s the acknowledgement of what must be done to prove that God loved us first. The reconciliation at the heart of God’s redemptive plan starts with love and proceeds without any assurance it will be repaid. And the physical agony that Jesus endures cannot begin to equal the mental anguish rising from the possibility it could all be for naught. That is the miracle of the cross. Jesus’s faith in God—even in the terrifying moments when He feels God has abandoned Him to die alone—is matched by God’s unfailing faith in us. To love us without any certainty we will return God’s love, it is more than the human heart and mind can comprehend.

God loved us first. It is almost unimaginable. Yet it is true. And the grandeur of such extreme love becomes the centerpiece of Paul’s attempt to awaken us to this amazing fact: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves God’s love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5.6-8)

As we approach Holy Week, may awareness that God loved us first overtake us. We’re moving toward a moment when we will discover love of unmatched magnificence and trust. The greatest love we can ever know is waiting for us at the cross. But as the Savior comes into view, let’s not forget that God waits faithfully for our love to flow upward. May our song forever be, “Oh, how I love Jesus. Because He first loved me.”

Most of All

I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the sharing of His sufferings by becoming like Him in His death. (Philippians 3.8)

Center of Everything

If our lives were bookshelves, where would the volume called My Faith be? Would it stand on such a tall shelf that retrieving it requires too much effort? Would it get tucked between other familiar titles—My Family, My Job, What I Do for Fun—where it competes for our attention and often is jostled out of the way as we reach for something else? Would it be somewhere in all of these stories of our lives, yet it would take some looking to find it? Would it be stacked nearby, in the pile of books we intend to thumb through when we find the time?

Or would My Faith rest at the center of everything, easily within reach, its covers barely able to contain pages swollen from overuse, the copy smeared from constant highlighting, the margins tattooed with notes and question marks and exclamation points? Would it be so vital to everything we do that it never makes it to the bookshelf at all? Is it the one book we carry with us at all times, no matter where we go or what we do?

Sunday’s New Testament selections (John 12.1-8; Philippians 3.4-14) portray two people whose editions of My Faith are veritable forces that propel their lives. In John, we see Mary, the sister of Jesus’s close friend, Lazarus, do something that seems utterly senseless, yet makes perfect sense. In Philippians, we hear Paul explain his approach to life. Again, what he says sounds illogical. But his reasoning is solid.

Most Peculiar

Mary’s story is remembered for several reasons: her extravagant behavior, which comes out of nowhere; Judas’s exaggerated outrage, which camouflages ulterior motives; and Jesus’s defense of Mary, which, if we misread it, is somewhat confusing. And the event’s drama is magnified by its setting, a dinner party. Jesus and the disciples are headed for Jerusalem, where—unbeknownst to everyone but Him—their travels will end. They stop at Bethany, a prosperous outlying village, to visit with Lazarus and his sisters. While Martha puts dinner on the table and Lazarus hosts his guests, Mary appears with a pound of nard, a costly perfume made from oil pressed out of the roots of spikenard, a flowering plant from the Valerian family. Nard is primarily used to anoint corpses, as its sedative properties (like those in today’s Valerian root extract) are said to enhance the deceased’s restfulness. Mary empties the nard onto Jesus’s feet and wipes off the excess with her hair. Her actions are alarming on many levels.

Most obvious, of course, is the expensiveness of her gesture—which is what angers Judas. He protests her wastefulness, saying she could have sold the perfume and fed poor people with the proceeds. (The writer of John is skeptical about his motives, however, saying that, as treasurer of Jesus’s ministry, he skimmed donations.) Furthermore, Mary’s behavior is totally inappropriate at a dinner party. Bringing nard to the table introduces an ominous air to a festive situation; its association with funerals cannot be overlooked. Then, anointing Jesus and wiping His feet with her hair crosses numerous social boundaries: male-female, life-death, intimate-public, leader-follower. Everything about this is most peculiar, unlike anything else we see in the Gospels.

So Judas’s shock is understandable, even if his motives are corrupt. No doubt everyone—other than Jesus and Mary—is appalled by her actions. Jesus’s reply to Judas’s complaint doesn’t ease the tension. “Leave her alone,” he says. “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of My burial. You will always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.” (John 12.7-8) We can read His response any number of ways that miss His point. Is Jesus placing His personal comfort above the poor’s needs? Is He saying our commitment to end poverty is futile? Is He excusing what looks like conspicuous consumption? Why would Mary to bring augurs of His death to the table in the first place? Does she know something that no one else but Jesus realizes? Apparently, she does. In very short order, Jesus will be illegally arrested, tried, and executed.

It is vital for Mary to express her faithfulness to Him before He dies. She anoints His feet, because they are about to travel a rugged road that leads to Jerusalem and takes a sharp turn up Calvary’s hill. But why does she towel His feet with her hair? Jesus grasps the symbolism of her gesture. In physically reclaiming the excess, she shares in His death. It’s about more than staying with Jesus until the end; active faith emits intentions to remain with Christ always, in life, death, and life after death. That is, most certainly, a shocking confession.

The Story of Our Lives

Unfortunately, John doesn’t give Mary a chance to explain. If she could speak, she would echo Paul’s statement in Philippians 3.8: “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the sharing of His sufferings by becoming like Him in His death.” Once again, we see a disciple at Jesus’s feet, pouring out his soul, desiring to get so close to Jesus that he’s inseparable from Him. Like Mary, Paul recognizes that resurrection is a miraculous outcome that overthrows the brutality of earlier suffering and the finality of death. (We cannot rise from what we do not experience.) Paul opens this passage with startling bravado. “If anyone has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more,” he brags in verse 4. He lists all the ways he’s superior, concluding, “as to righteousness under the law, [I am] blameless.” (v6) For someone constantly urging his readers to stay humble, his swagger seems wildly inappropriate. Yet Paul redeems himself in the next verse: “Whatever gains I had, these I regard as loss because of Christ.”

In Mary and Paul, we see two individuals of notable means and privilege. Neither is born into poverty. Both come from strong families and enjoy the advantages of status. Neither really has anything to prove in society’s eyes. Still, both implicitly understand that faith matters most of all. It is so central to their lives that they keep it in handy reach, using it to frame everything they do and say. Do they realize this will alarm some and anger others? Of course, they do. But their longing to know Christ in every way—in suffering, death, and resurrection—surpasses any concerns about how they’re viewed. They count everything but their faith as a loss. They know that following Christ through sufferings and death will bring new life to every aspect of their existence.

Which brings us back to the bookshelf. When My Faith becomes the most important volume in our lives, other books obtain greater meaning and clarity. In our homes and families, at work and play, we experience resurrection power by proclaiming victory over suffering and death through faith. The world will continue to turn. There will always be poor people. There will always be rich ones. There will always be cruel people. There will always be kind ones. But we who cherish faith most of all are unshaken by any of this, because our lives hew to a different story that grasps the relationship between loss and resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul poeticizes this, using a seed as his metaphor. He says: “What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” (v42-43) That’s how faith seizes control of life’s sorrows and setbacks. That’s the story of our lives.

In anointing Jesus’s feet and wiping up the excess perfume with her hair, Mary shares in His death and resurrection. That is her story. And if we make faith central to our lives, it becomes our story, too.