Reading the news this morning, I ran across an article that caught my eye. It concerns events in Jerusalem at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the ostensible site of Christ’s tomb. (Traditionally there’s some debate about whether that is the correct site, but that’s irrelevant for this post.) This is a site that is venerated by three different branches of Christianity–the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic churches–who all maintain a constant presence there. And it is falling apart.
Most places, that would be no big deal. You strike a deal, you call a contractor, you fix things. Jerusalem is not most places, and due to a curious (and stupid, if I may say so) twist of the law, fixing a location is essentially a declaration of ownership. You can probably see the problem already.
None of those three groups will allow any other to claim ownership of the site ahead of them, and therefore nothing gets done. This is a site that exists in layers that collectively date back well over a thousand years, and it has sustained a lot of damage in that time. It’s on the verge of collapsing, to the point that the Israeli police stepped in last year and temporarily evacuated the site. The implication was that the three groups should get their act together and fix the place, or risk losing access to it completely. Of course, they can’t do that.
Seriously, people. You name the name of Jesus, the very One you believe was once buried there. You’re supposed to prefer each other before yourselves. And yet, you are so fragmented that you’ve established tiny little domains all over the site, little forts that you guard against each other–the article mentions a Catholic ladder, an Armenian walkway.
But I didn’t come here today, for my first post in over a year, to tell these groups that they should just get along. Certainly that’s a good message, but I want to get a little more fundamental than that. I want to think about what I believe is the problem–or at least, one of the problems–underlying all this.
I believe our emphasis–I say “our” in a show of solidarity here, though I am not a member of any of those groups–our emphasis is in the wrong place. We’re not alone in this; in fact, we’re in good company. We stand with the earliest believers here. We stand with the women who were the first to come to that very tomb after it opened. We’re making the same mistake, even if it’s an understandable one: We’re looking for the living among the dead.
And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”1
Have we been getting this wrong for centuries? I think we have. And really, we have no excuse–it’s not like we weren’t warned.
Look, I’m all for the preservation of history. I like historical sites–I spent my honeymoon, years ago, visiting battlefields and cemeteries and museums. I want these places to exist. Further, I think there’s value in visiting them and standing where saints and great men and women of the past once stood. But those things aren’t spiritual in themselves. And yet, all too often, we believe they are. Here’s a quote from the article:
“This is a very super experience of my spirit,” said Anil Macwan, 30, a lay Catholic preacher from India. “The world cannot give me the feeling I get from this tomb, this place. It is a very sacred place.”
People, it’s a tomb. A grave. An empty one at that. It’s important for the witness it bears to the truth of what God’s Word tells us. But–and this is it, this is the central truth–Jesus is not there.
He’s not there!
He lives!
I can’t help feeling that if we gave our devotion to the living savior, then maintaining the tomb would be no big deal. It would fade into the background. Because the thing that has our hearts, and our passion, is the One Who lives. And that’s what He wants. He’s the One Who told us this, too:
“…The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father...the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”2
I don’t expect this post will change the situation at large. These groups have been at it for a long, long time. Their animosity is institutionalized. But if I can persuade one person, even one, to concentrate on the living Savior, I’ll have made my point. And that’s enough.
He’s not there. He’s alive. Don’t seek the living among the dead. Look to Jesus instead.
1 Luke 24:5
2 John 4:21, 23
Thoughts of a Formerly Dead Man 