Lying here, trying to stop thinking about how I wish I could stop thinking about not being able to fall asleep, I keep circling back to another unsolicited thought: Is the news of tomorrow really good news? Do we really want a risen Lord?

If Jesus stays in the tomb, it means that the world can continue on its course, unaccountable, free of any Absolutes–other than death–shrugging off that nagging Voice of its conscience time and time again. If Jesus stays in the tomb, there is no Lord to answer to, no Voice from without, only fleeting (if competing) echoes from within, and at any rate all voices are moving toward a finality of silence. 

That, to me at least, seems much easier to deal with than is the prospect of the destruction of death. It’s much easier to imagine death brings a certain finality to all that I have done and not done, all that I have said and not said, to missed opportunities to love and help and give and forgive, to my violence, my greed, my self-indulgence… I can’t help but think it is easier to make peace anticipating closure to all that than anticipating that my life and my will and my secret thoughts and intentions are wide open to an infinite future, a future in which I am not Lord and death is not an option, a future from which that nagging Voice is issued from a throne, a Voice that alone is Absolute. 

There was terror that first Easter (Mt. 28:1-10; Mk. 16:1-8; Lk. 24:36-43). And I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. The world has lost its autonomy. Death no longer affords any escape routes. Life is laid bare to an infinite future that we know now only as a Voice, often just a faint Whisper–but then we shall see Him face to face. 

What a glorious–and terrifying–day tomorrow will be.