What was it like the day God died? When they took him down from the cross, wrapped those linens around his body and laid him in a borrowed tomb? When they rolled the stone across the opening, sealing inside the dead body of the son of the living God, the Messiah?
I’m reminded of September 11, 2001 and the days following. The shock. The grief. When someone we love dies, there’s an emptiness. The place where they used to sit at the table. Their voice on the phone. A void.
In the days following 9-11 when all air traffic was grounded, I remember looking up in the sky and finding it strange that only the birds were up there. What was once natural now seemed unnatural. The silence. The absence of jet trails across the sky.
A pause, as if the skies were holding their breath, waiting to see if death and destruction were finished.
It’s easy to imagine the shock and grief of Jesus’ disciples, his family, his followers. His seat at the table was empty. His voice silent. The place in their lives that had been filled with his life was void. What had been natural was suddenly unnatural. And silent. And absent. Where was God, if his son, the Messiah, was lying dead in a tomb?
A pause. As if all creation were holding its breath, waiting to see if death had won.
