ニューイングランドの母校から、イースターへ備えて日々のみことばの味わい　その８

Day 8: Resurrection Sunday, April 1

All From an Empty Tomb

1 Corinthians 15:20-28

The undone, Undone. Nothingness brought to naught. All from an empty tomb.

nightmare Over,
night Eclipsed.
emptiness, Filled.
loneliness, taken Captive.

He comes, He sees, He is conquered, and in being conquered, Conquers yet.
The shattered becomes Whole as the Destroyed destroys the destroyer.

Now we know. From ignorance flows epiphany. The clues were buried deep, like winter seeds in search of spring. Like lilies, longing to erupt from beneath the snow, burst forth the flowering of ancient promises.

Worlds shattered and reborn. Castles of contentment attacked and breached, the blood of preconceptions shed. The end of Nothing, the beginning of Everything. Cosmos turned inside out and stretched to eternity—all from an empty tomb. All from an empty tomb?
All from an empty tomb.

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But what now? What of me? Who am I in the light of Him? His rising calls me into question, makes me irrelevant to my irrelevance. Who am I? Who am I now, in light of this, in the crosshairs of His empty tomb? I stand afraid, the glory and the horror,
the dignity and depravity,
swirl together in the colloid of my soul.

This I know. I am confronted. I have longed for this One I both love, and fear. He finds me in this tomb of self, he claims me in this boneyard of death which has become my soul. From there He summons me to this via dolorosa of encounter I need, and want, and dread.

He speaks his new word over me, even as it was spoken first so long ago. “Arise, come forth!”

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Is it true? Is there a Me beyond me, and did Jesus rise to take me there? Is there an Us beyond us, and did he rise to take us there? Is there a There beyond here, and did he rise to take us There? My soul trembles with longing and with hope.

All from an empty tomb? All from an empty tomb…

Tom Pfizenmaier, 2018

Tom Pfizenmaier, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Formation and Leadership Development; Director of Formation and Leadership Development; Dean of the Hamilton Campus