Come Out With Him, Come Out of the Tomb

            Who is in the tomb?

            Jesus, surely.

            The rest of us, sadly.

            Who is in the tomb?

            The Dead and the Dying.

            The Living Lord and those coming to Life.

            Who is in the tomb?

            Those coming to integrity, union of body and soul, one person fully human, created in the image and likeness of God.  Physical and spiritual. Enjoying life. They are not afraid to come out of the tomb.

            Who is in the tomb?

            The disjointed, the despairing, those with body and soul at war with each other.  Trying to be fully human by reducing humanity to the physical.  Selfish.  Distracted.  Suffering the battle of the spiritual and physical within.  Dying.  Afraid to come out of the tomb.

            And

            The dead.  Those whose lives are reduced to satisfying animal needs.  No spirit.  No concern.  Nothing to show for life but stuff.  Nothing to show.  No purpose for living.  Suicidal.  Dead.  Withdrawn from reality, afraid to come to wisdom.

            “Come out of the tomb!”  Jesus called to Lazarus.

            “Come out of the tomb!”  Jesus calls to humanity.

            “I cannot find the way,” mankind responds. We respond. 

            “It is dark in here. There are caverns.  I am lost in an endless series of underground tunnels. 

            I cannot find the way out,” we cry.

            “Do not be not afraid” Jesus says.

            “Follow me,” He says.

            And we are baptized.

            “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus  were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” These are the first words of Christian scripture in the Easter season, Paul to the Romans.

            Our lives have meaning, and purpose and beauty because we are not satisfied with the shallow existence of materialism and self-gratification.  He has called us out of this darkness and death and given us each the ability to make his presence real for others. 

            Baptism is far more than the sacramental rite of pouring water over a person and reciting the Trinitarian Formula.  The act is meaningless if the person is not committed.  Baptizing an infant who will never again be brought to Christ is a hollow act.  Baptism, true baptism, is an acceptance of the spiritual, a commitment to the Divine.  There are many who have been baptized who have never had water poured on them.  True baptism is a union of Body and Soul, a restoration of the human creature to basic integrity.

            The relationship of Easter and Baptism is that the restoration of Jesus’s life, the Resurrection, is a sign, a sacrament, of the restoration of the spiritual life for those who choose God.

            Back to the tomb.

            In the Creed we pray, Jesus descended to the dead.  The older versions of the  creed actually said that he descended into hell, only theologians, some of whom have too much time on their hands, couldn’t reconcile that thought with the permanency of damnation. 

            Let’s suspend theological arguments for a while.  There are many who are convinced that they are damned.  And they are afraid to come out of the tomb.  They are convinced that they don’t deserve to return to life.  Their  hatred for themselves condemns them to their own hell.  The woman suffering from an abortion, the man who has destroyed his family, the teenager fighting an addiction, are just a few who feel that they are excluded from salvation.  Some of these people are here.  They forget, we forget, that there is no one whom Jesus did not die for.  Jesus descends into their hell to bring them out of the tomb.  There is no one whom he does not love.  There is no one for whom he will not descend to the dead to bring to a New Life.

            All of us in some way or other find ourselves in a tomb.  All of us suffer an inner chaos as our physical lives fight our spiritual lives and the integrity of body and soul is torn apart.  In many ways we are all afraid to let go of our dependence on the physical, afraid to let go of our selfishness, afraid to trust in the spiritual, to trust in God.  Christ descends into the chaos of each of our lives and says “Come out of the tomb with me and into a new life. Be not afraid.”

            To some degree or other, we all share in the lack of integrity that is epidemic in our society.  To some degree or other we all are in turmoil as we alternate from physical to spiritual to physical, from selfish to giving to selfish,  and then are repulsed by our own hypocrisy.

            We need God.  Life is chaos without him.  But with God there are no limits to our ability to love.  This is our Christian dignity!  We are followers of Christ and sharers of his resurrected life through our personal acceptance of Easter, our baptism. We possess Jesus Christ. We have the source of life that can never be taken from us.

            "Alleluia!" we proclaim today along with the Church.  Jesus has descended to the dead, to us.  He has restored our integrity.

            Do not be not afraid to follow Him out of the tomb.