There is a hole in the middle of Paris today. One could add, there’s a hole in the HEART of Paris today. We all saw the images of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris on FIRE. That’s how Holy Week began for the world this year. A monument carrying in its walls 850 years of life and culture and faith, was burning. And we watched the people of France as they GATHERED AROUND, with tears in their eyes, singing together while the fire raged, to Mary, their Notre dame. Some were kneeling. Others were overwhelmed in tears, not sure what to do with the empty space that housed their collective identity. The symbol of their city was now more like a mausoleum, ashen, gutted. It is a huge hole in the heart of Paris.
It was a huge hole in the middle of the church this past August – when the Pennsylvania grand jury report came back. Stories of horrific violations, of lives shattered by predators, leaving empty hearts and empty lives, ashen, gutted, wounded seemingly beyond repair. A hole that found its way like a dagger into the heart of many a staunch believer who tried to wrap their spirits around such a betrayal and violation. A friend described the feelings – gutting. Like a hole in my soul. And they are still not sure what to do with that emptiness.
For the women who came to the tomb, it was a huge hole in their lives. He was gone. Their life, their meaning, their messiah – gone. Killed like a common criminal and then rushed into the stone cold tomb before they could finish the rites of burial because of the looming Sabbath. And now, returning, they find “nobody” in the tomb. NO BODY in the tomb. And they are not sure what to do with that surprising emptiness.
(pause)
I don’t know if you ever noticed this, but the initial passages about that first Easter Sunday morning do not focus on the APPEARANCES of Jesus. Rather they are initially about what is NOT THERE. About an empty tomb. About a nothingness that should hold something. Like the people of Paris when they woke that next morning to the cold light of dawn to see what was not there in their beloved Notre dame, they walk to a tomb only to discover that it holds nothing. Luke records that “they were puzzling over this.”
And I wonder, if Easter always BEGINS at that place – with a willingness to embrace the mystery of an emptiness, a nothing.
Easter does not start with ecstasy or joy or celebration. There is never an “Oh my gosh, this is amazing!” There is just this: a willingness to EMBRACE a MYSTERY. “Their story seemed like nonsense” to the other disciples. Doesn’t it always seem like nonsense? How can there be life from this violation? these charred remains? this empty tomb? AND YET, Peter runs to the tomb – he runs because SOMETHING in him says there is more to this mystery. This stubborn muscle called hope said ‘nothing’/an empty tomb cannot be the end of this one in whom he knew such life and healing and love and challenge. So he runs, and that running to embrace the mystery of suffering – is the beginning of HOPE that will not die— NOT because of Peter, but because of the POWER of God that will not burn up or be buried.
And isn’t that, at least on some level, exactly why we are here? We too, have known the ashes of our own cathedrals, the loss of our innocence, the betrayals of our blind trusts. We too, know what it is like to wake up with a hole in the middle of our hearts and lives where a loved one lived, where a failure has burned, where we experience the emptiness of our own striving. Like the women first to the tomb, like the apostles that first Easter morning, what we sometimes know best is nothing –no thing – just a profound emptiness and loss.
And the temptation is to rush to the resurrection. Religion goes bad when we do that. When we try to skip over the sadness, the loss, the suffering before it can teach us and shape us – BEFORE GOD can use it to mold the resurrection in us. But perhaps the fires of Notre Dame can teach us a different path this year.
IF we surrender to the mystery of what is before us, if we embrace our deepest sin, our largest failure, and HOLD IT in the mystery of God’s love, then, like the people of France, we can find hope in the ashes. Then like the disciples, like the women, we can wait upon the POSSIBIITY of what God is up to even in the emptiness. You see, that is where God does his best work – at all the places where we only know death, only know loss and an empty tomb. And that muscle called hope sends US running to the tombs of our own lives somehow trusting, like Peter, that this emptiness is not the final story. Believing that the God who raised Jesus from the dead will also raise us with him.
Lent began for us in the ashes that marked our foreheads. For the people of Paris, and by extension, us, this year it ends in ashes. But, as the smoke clears, we begin to see that buried in the ashes, in the nothingness that used to be their cathedral, is the beginning of something new. And if you trust enough to enter into the mystery of emptiness and loss, then Easter can come early for you, as it did for the people of Paris. And God the father can work on that little muscle that made all the difference for the women, for Peter and for the people of Paris – HOPE!