“Mary Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning… and saw the stone removed.” She ran “to the other disciples… and told them, ‘They have taken Jesus from the tomb, and we don’t know where he is.’”
The priestly rulers who sought Jesus’ murder, the political rulers who ordered it, and the soldiers who carried it out all share an addiction – to death. Their religion, Militarism, directs everyone to the tomb. Their habits consign the living to the graveyard. As we dwell amidst their death, and with their permission, they let us fancy ourselves theologians of an afterlife. We talk of an invented world and judge who shall merit living in it and who shall not. It is talk of fantasy living, separated from the real dying these addicted ones force upon us. Their addiction to death feels so final, but it is not so. It is our love of life which endures. Resurrections always follow their crucifixions. Always, we are animated by the power of life. We rise from tombs and graveyards because the power of life frees us. It is a power born of such things as friendships, communion with nature, and artistry. Each of us are artists, creating ever anew. We sometimes struggle to be creative and confine the power of life that could be flowing through us. In some ways, theologians who construct end of life tales have counterparts in scientists who construct beginning of life tales? Does their getting us to ponder life’s beginnings or endings divert us from the possibility that life is eternal? Eternal life suggests the universe has always been and will always be. So too God, however we understand that Mystery, has always been and will always be. The power of life and the essence of God are intricately interwoven, so much so, can it be asked if they are One? When we ponder the energy of the universe or any life-giving creature within it, are we not pondering the existence or essence of Divinity? Whether we wonder about another life beyond this one or about hydrogen helium interactions that sparked this one into being, we sing with life here and now, so that neither an addiction to death nor perhaps an evasion from life have our attention. We live adventurously in a world charged with beauty, with love. Whatever may be proposed by theologians or scientists, we know life is eternal as we love one another. Our love for one another is the energy of life itself. It is the energy of Mary of Magdala who came to the tomb that Easter day so long ago. A graveyard had been placed before her but she would not become addicted to it. Love was the energy that sang forth from her life.
“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk… That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan… I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing… Thou was not born for death, immortal Bird! (Ode to a Nightingale – John Keats)
Prayer: Spirit, we sing of life.
Question: Of what does my life sing?
April 4, 2021 Gospel John 20:1-9 Easter