Saturday: The Tomb and The End of History 

The dismal reality of the crucifixion meant that God was dead, and we had killed him. All hope for life was seemingly lost. The day after the crucifixion the world looked about for evidence of life, for evidence of God, but none could be found; for God lay in a tomb, hidden from the light of day. He truly was dead. Indeed, all evidence was lost, but there was a distant echo of hope…a flittering memory of a faithful God whose promise to dwell with humanity demanded that he live. So we continued searching in hope against hope. We searched and searched the whole world over until there was only one place left to look, in a place we had never dreamed of finding God—in a tomb. So we lit our candles and went to search for God in the darkest and most dreadful place imaginable.

Our search took us into the darkness of death. And it was in that place that we would make our most disquieting discovery. Not only did we discover God there, but we discovered that it was there that God discovered us. The tomb was the place of reunion. We knew not whether to be hopeful or afraid. Had God joined us in death to seal up our fate, to keep us there, to declare that eternity had come into the tomb to secure death as our eternal home? Had the promises of God to dwell with humanity meant not that all things would eventually live but that all things would eventually die? Had our victorious destruction of God ultimately meant self-destruction?

We decided that if we had to wait to find out, we were not going to wait in this dreadful tomb, so we turned to leave only to see the stone being rolled over the entrance. We ran toward the shrinking sliver of light. We ran as hard as we could, striving with all that we had to arise from this tomb, but the dream world took over and everything slowed. The light was approach a seemingly infinite horizon of darkness. We may have been stronger than God but death was stronger than us. And in our haste our candles were overcome by the darkness. Everything, it seemed, had been overcome by darkness. God had been overcome by darkness. Humanity had been overcome by darkness. The world had been overcome by darkness. God was dead. We were dying. And the whole world…it was as though the sun was forsaking us. The world had been flung into a starless universe. The war was over and the prince of darkness had prevailed. History was at its end. This was the end.