Memoirs of a Tomb




Everyone had an aversion to me. No poet ever sang my praises. Rich and poor, wise and ignorant, lord and vassal, king and subject, all knew that sooner or later I would be their dwelling place. What fascination, then, could a tomb like me, a dumping ground for all that is foul, have for anybody? I was born to be an object of fear and horror for all humanity

From the quarry where the stones came from to build me, Solomon took the stones to raise up his magnificent temple to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Jerusalem . Every year, for the feast of the Passover, thousands of pilgrims arrived from every part of the country. In the temple courtyards they kept alive the memory of the day when God freed the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt .

The pilgrims never tired of praising the stones of which the many enclosures of the imposing edifice were harmoniously built. Inside, the Holy of Holies sheltered the Ark of the Covenant. In their prayers, the pilgrims also remembered me. They prayed to God to be kept free from my company. “Oh my God, do not be deaf to my voice; do not let it happen that, through your not hearing me, I become united to those who go down to the tomb” (Ps 27, 1). A curse weighed on my very existence.

To the stones of the temple wafted the sweet perfume of incense; to mine, the fetid stench of a corpse in decomposition. To those, praise and thanksgiving raised up to heaven; to mine, the lamentations and the funeral hymns of those who weep for their dead. Would that they had used my stones to build the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth ! There, they would have contemplated the holiness of Mary, and heard the tender voice of Joseph explaining the sacred Scriptures to the Child Jesus. Instead, they keep company always with death.

One day, seated upon me and leaning on his scythe, he confided to me: “My dear tomb, a person’s life is a continual struggle with my power. I have the last word on human life. No one escapes my clutches. I am the wages of sin. Because of sin, all are my hostages”. His face twisted with pride, he concluded: “I am invincible”.

He suddenly stood up and disappeared. Later I heard he had gone off to scythe down the life of a very wealthy man who had always refused the crumbs from his table to a poor man named Lazarus, whose feet were covered in sores and licked by dogs. I hope they don’t bring the rich man to me. The bad smell of sin is worse than the bad smell of rotting flesh. Lots of people look like me. On the outside they wear jewels, and are dressed impeccably, but inside they are just filth: pride, avarice, envy; anger, lust gluttony, sloth, lies, calumnies, slanders, thefts, murders, corruption, debauchery, drunkenness, orgies, pornography, adultery, unbelief and covetousness.

Loneliness relieved

Relief from my days of loneliness came about through the weeping and lamenting of a group of women and men, as they approached me on the eve of the Jewish Passover. When they came in, I recognized Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. There was also a young man called John with them. On a stretcher made of leather, they brought in the body of a man.
My stones were moved with great emotion on seeing him. It was difficult to recognize that it was a man, so disfigured was he. He seemed a worm and no man. He was covered in terrible wounds, and his joints were dislocated. He had undoubtedly suffered extreme torture. I felt that all the hate in hell had been unleashed against him. Yet everything about him was inexpressibly majestic. His name was Jesus, the son of Mary. He had died crucified, a punishment reserved for the worst of criminals.

When they had finishing embalming the body of Jesus, they wrapped him in strips of cloth, and covered him with a long shroud. Apart from the perfume in the balsam, a sweet smell of sanctity seemed to be exuded by that body. They finished the burial and, filled with sadness, said their last goodbye, before slowly moving away.

Death had claimed another victim. For a few moments I continued contemplating that lifeless body. Death, I concluded, definitely has the last word on human life. Well, at least, from now on, I’ll no longer be alone. Besides Jesus’ body, I will have the company of his family and friends who will come to visit him over the years. One day, in three of four generations’ time, they too will forget him, and then my fate will be irrevocably sealed: total oblivion.

I was built inside a cave. As soon as the last ray of light had been extinguished, blocked out by the stone they rolled over to close the entrance, an extraordinary thing happened. A dazzling light circled the body of Jesus, and two angels, their arms crossed over their chest, prostrated themselves in silent adoration, one beside his head, and the other beside his feet. They reminded me very strongly of the cherubims who guard the Ark of the Covenant. Who indeed was this man who lay on my sepulchral bed?

Early Sunday morning I was astonished to see Jesus’ soul come down into his body. All at once his arms and legs began to move. I gazed in wonder as, wrapped in light and splendour, he came forth from his burial clothes. In his hand, he had a white staff, with an unfurled flag on it. At that same moment I saw, in apparition, a monstrous figure, that had come up from hell beneath the tomb. In hate and fury against Jesus, he raised up his serpent’s tail and dragon’s head. Jesus, with royal power and authority, trod on his head and then beat three times with his staff on the serpent’s tail. I watched as the monster shrivelled up smaller and smaller until he finally disappeared.

Next, a voice proclaimed, with such power that the whole of creation seemed to shake: “I am the First and the Last; I am the Living One. I was dead, and look – I am alive again for ever and ever, and I hold the Keys of death and of Hades” (Ap 1, 17-18). He then passed out, resplendent, through the rock that was across the entrance. An angel, in the form of a warrior, came down like lightning from heaven, rolled the stone aside and sat on it. For three days, without knowing it, I had acted as the Tabernacle for the Saviour of the world, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, the only Son of God, the Christ.

The stones will preach

On that Sunday, the shame that weighed on the Sons of Adam is removed; the curse that floods all creation is washed away by the river of Living Water , welling up into Eternal Life. A new humanity is born, free from slavery to sin. Death ceases to be the last word on the human race. “Christ, having risen from the dead, will never die again. Death has no power over him any more” (Rm 6, 9). The last word now is from Jesus; the outcome of human history is in Him.

Satan, sacked and ridiculed, sees his empire destroyed. The document whose decrees condemned all humanity is abolished. The abyss that separated man from God is no more. The gates of heaven are open again. Obedient unto death, to death on a cross, Jesus is constituted Lord of all creation and of all humanity. In heaven, on earth and in hell, every knee shall bow before the awe-inspiring, holy name of Jesus. King of the universe, he has become the supreme judge of the living and the dead.

Today I don’t envy any more the stones of the Temple . They guarded the Ark of the Covenant; I sheltered the Ark of the new and eternal Covenant. They were visited by the high priests; I had in my arms the body of the supreme and eternal Priest. They contemplated the expiatory sacrifice of goats and lambs; I served as altar for the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. They heard the prophecies about the Messiah; I was host to the Messiah himself. They are weeping tears of nostalgia because of the Temple of Jerusalem , no stone of which is left standing on another; I am refreshed by the tears of sinners who, in repentance, are bathed by the light and the dew of Redemption.

Two thousand years have passed and I am still an empty tomb. But my loneliness and my shame are over. Every year, millions of pilgrims, not only from Jerusalem but also from the whole world, come to visit me. I have become a visible witness to the event that changed history forever: the Resurrection of Jesus. What fascination could an empty tomb like me have for so many people? I believe that it’s a sentence written on my stone: “Why look among the dead for someone who is alive?”

In fact, I’m not an empty tomb. Since the resurrection of Jesus, I have become the burial place of millions of men and women who, in obedience to their faith, have died to sin so as to be born again for God. “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised in Jesus Christ were baptised into his death? So, by our baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glorious power, we too should begin living a new life” (Rm 6, 3-4).

I am more than a tomb. I’m a challenge to the faith of every person who visits me. Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me, even though he dies, will live. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (Jn 11, 25ff).

I have only one suffering: nostalgia for Jesus. I know that on the day of the General Resurrection, when Jesus will appear on the clouds, there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth. In this new universe, the heavenly Jerusalem , God will make his home with humankind. “I will wipe away the tears from every eye, for there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. The world of the past has gone” (Ap 21, 4).

On this day, tombs will exist no more. My stones, renewed too, will be used to build the heavenly Jerusalem . There, united to all who have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb, they will be able to contemplate and adore forever the face of him who, one day, in my bosom, was dead, but now lives forever. Come, Lord Jesus!

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