a series of reflections based on this online stations of the cross
This station invites us to sit in that uncomfortable space of waiting for the resurrection. Because we know what happens, we often jump from the crucifixion to the resurrection. But there’s a tomb first. There’s a naming that the crucifixion results in death. There’s an acknowledgment that death is real. There’s a taking the body off the cross and putting it in the tomb, honoring and respecting the body and the life that has ended.
My grandmother died my senior year of high school. Her death was sudden, but not surprising–her health had been diminishing for a while. But we weren’t expecting it, so it was still a shock. Her death happened in the midst of a season of other griefs that year, so while I attended her funeral and acknowledged the loss, it wasn’t until I had the chance to visit the cemetery where she was buried several years later that I really felt the loss.
My grandmother is buried in Kenya, where my family has had history since 1917. She’s buried next to my grandfather in the cemetery outside of the hospital that has a wing named after her brother who was a doctor there. I returned to Kenya after college and walked down to the cemetery. I saw the headstone on my grandparents’ graves–covered with grass and the marks of time. The cemetery in Kenya isn’t the immaculate landscape that many cemeteries in the U.S. are. Instead, in the midst of overgrown grass and untended dirt, there are headstones with inscriptions that can barely be read, but give witness to lives of faithful commitment and sacrifice. As I stood and reflected on my grandparents’ life and ministry in Kenya, I think I put her in the tomb. I felt the grief of her death. I named the loss in a different way. I knew that life had changed. My dad was her only child, and neither me nor my siblings were likely to go back to Kenya to live. So I wondered who would visit her grave and tell stories about her life. I wondered who would take time to put flowers on her headstone, or clear the grass and dirt from the grave. I attended my grandmother’s funeral in 1999, but in 2003 I experienced something like laying her to rest.
Between the cross and the resurrection, Joseph of Arimethea puts Jesus’ body in the tomb. Death is real. A life has come to an end. Jesus is put to rest. Sometimes it’s really important to say that out loud…to do something with your body to acknowledge that reality…to put the life that has died to rest.