On Easter Sunday…some thoughts from my first visit to Jerusalem in 2011…
I would say that the world is a hopeless place…except it’s not. Somewhere around here – at the Garden Tomb, under a church – there’s an empty tomb to prove it. It’s what we have to offer this place – emptiness.
Absence.
If we take on what this place is full of – despair, hatred, violence – then we place the body of Jesus right back where it was at the end – dead, lifeless, abandoned, abused, scorned, and hopeless. But if we yield to the absence…If we retain nothing…If we get rid of the pretension that we know what God would have them do…we would at last be true to the truth that is uniquely ours to tell.
And what does that empty space proclaim? The presence of God who once met us face to face and we survived. The emptiness says God has gone on before us. The absence of anything pure reason and feeling would lead us to pushes us back to the way we always reject – Jesus’ way.
Remember how he told you this would be necessary. Remember how he told you that he came to bring a sword. Remember how he told you to love your enemy, your neighbor, your projimo. When you are empty…when you have nothing to give…when you know what it means to lay down your life…you will find it.
Heartlands 