Step Out of the Tomb

I’m like the majority of Christians: Give me the cross any day over the empty tomb and the resurrection. I mean, at least the cross has some finality to it. It is a symbol of death and, not to be forgotten, self-sacrifice. But that empty tomb stands there with gaping mouth and stone akilter, begging a comment or some reaction while offering no hint of what to say or do.

No wonder the cross is the primary symbol of Christianity. Yet in Easter and Eastertide we have to live with the empty tomb.

In his work, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Carl Jung points to the difficulty the empty tomb and resurrection presents. He says, “the phoenix is a well-known allegory of the resurrection of Christ and of the dead in general. It is the symbol of transformation par excellence.” There’s the rub! We can stand at the foot of the cross and be lost in adoration and thanks, but when we stand at the mouth of the tomb we are confronted with resurrection.

In that confrontation, we are challenged to undertake the process of transformation. While in relation to you and me the cross may be static, the tomb, on the other hand, is dynamic. How can we stand still in the presence of such power?

Of course, in the past, Christianity has pacified resurrection by telling you and me that it only has to do with what happens after we die in some glorious yonder in the sky. I don’t buy that line any more. Instead, I believe that kind of theology cheapens the magnificence and awesomeness that resurrection bestows upon you and me. Resurrection is not located in some make-believe, fantasy-filled future. Resurrection inhabits this moment, this breath, and fills it with possibility.

Resurrection is freedom. We keep hearing quite a bit about freedom in the media today. The freedom of resurrection is beyond what the popular press drones on and on about. Resurrection is freedom from the belief that human beings are best defined by depravity. How can we ‘rise’ when we are so low? What help do we have to break free of the various deaths (the denials, the can’ts, the conditionings, the expectations . . . ) that we might rise to new life?

Remember, resurrection calls us to transformation. It gives us genuine energy to change and evolve beyond conditionings, expectations, beliefs, and self-deprecation. Resurrection, besides being a symbol of transformation, is a symbol of new life. It is the eternal optimism that you can rise to new life that is built upon all the life experience you have garnered so far. It does not mean repudiating our lives; it means expanding our lives to a new level of knowing and being.

What will that new being look like? What will that new knowing consist of? Hear that scraping? It is the sound of stones rolling away. Embrace resurrection, step out of the tomb, make it empty! Come to know the person God called and created you to be, and discover the wonder of resurrection.

Joel t