Love is an Open Tomb

He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down, and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." An angel from Heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. -Luke 41-44



Holy Week has always been my favorite week of the Christian calendar, even ahead of the magic present in Christmastime and my Wesleyan ties to Pentecost. No doubt this results from the closet traditionalist in me who gradually fell in love with Jesus through liturgy, hymns, organ music, open table Communion, and Maundy Thursday seder meals. But this year has been the first time that the meaning of Holy Week clicked with me.

For Palm Sunday I attended Trinity Presbyterian Church in Topeka. I only lasted fifteen minutes of the service before crying. I cry often, but I only do so in private. At times I've joked that my tear ducts cannot release tears if they detect other human beings within a 200-foot radius. But the dark hymns combined with the dark scripture readings combined with the gradual darkness of the room knocked down my ducts' defenses. It was the kind of crying that required tissues and futile stifling, the kind of crying that had me bowing my head so that no one around would notice.

As I look 128 days ahead to my departure to seminary in Chicago, knowing full well that this new step will incite a new series of challenges sure to scare the Hell out of me, the Gethsemane passage smacks me in the face. In the passage, Jesus cries out from under an olive tree for God to take this cup from him. I often pray the same prayer. At times, I want to run from my call like Jonah did. Sometimes I'd rather inhabit the belly of the whale than do what God has called me to do. But I am moved to know that Jesus is with me in crying out to God in fear and confusion. I am in no way equating the struggles I will experience on my path to and in the ministry with Jesus's suffering on the cross. But as someone who has cried out to God to call someone else, I am comforted that even Jesus has done the same.

But Jesus goes further by praying next that God's will be done. Even in his moments of despair, Jesus can pray this without pause. And that is what I can't do. I can utter the Lord's Prayer in unison with those around me with much more ease than I can proclaim them with conviction. I can say that I trust God, but I stew over the unknown. I hear the words leave my mouth, but my heart would stop beating before it would bleed to death. 

Jesus asks for God's will, and Jesus prays it better than I do. Jesus prays it with the knowledge of his death by crucifixion, and Jesus does not waver. Jesus asks that God's will be done so that he can die with us, so that he can endure the pain with us.

Perhaps even more remarkable to me than Jesus's choice to die with us is his decision to rise and live with us again. After Jesus dies, his body is placed in a tomb. We tend to think of tombs and burial grounds as resting places for the dead. This rest implies peace. It is a kind of peace that is well-deserved after living a life of agony in a world complicit in its own suffering. But Jesus leaves his resting place. Jesus leaves the tomb.

The open tomb moves beyond giving us eternal life and represents a sacrifice of peace. The open tomb illustrates Jesus's love for us as he chooses to return to a world of chaos and suffering with us once again. The open tomb demonstrates that Jesus will walk with us in our calls through the despair, confusion, and fear. 

Jesus's resurrection is a triumph over death, of course, but it is also a victory over the pain and suffering prevalent in our world, as Jesus is present every day in bringing the kingdom to us by working and living with us to curb the destruction. 

Love is Gethsemane. Love is crying out to God with us. Love is calling us anyway and walking with us in that call. Love is crucifixion in our place. Love is resurrection. Love is Easter.

Love is an open tomb.