Friday, April 26, 2024
Six feet deep: the length of a fathom, a nautical term used to measure depth. Six feet under: where God went this Saturday, this day after the cross but before the empty tomb. It is the day in between. The day of darkness.
Go deep enough, and it gets dark, really dark. You lose sense of up and down, of where you end and another begins, of what really surrounds you and who is with you. But darkness can also be where we discover and receive a truth beyond comprehension.
It is in the darkness that God comes to Abram (not yet Abraham). Abram wonders what life is all about and has all but given up hope of having a child with his elderly wife Sarai. “Look at the stars,” God tells Abram. As Ralph Waldo Emerson later noticed, “When it is dark enough, men see stars.” And God says, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. … So shall your descendants be.” (Genesis 15:5 NRSV)
And so, they were blessed, beyond their understanding.
It is in the darkness that God comes to Jacob. Jacob is running from the fact that he deceived his own brother of his birthright but now his brother is about to meet him after years apart. Jacob needs the darkness to hide; that’s when God comes and wrestles with him, or was it the other way around? And after a long, dark night of wrestling, Jacob emerges with a dislocated hip and a new name: Israel (one who strives with God). It was time to meet his brother. And so, they met, and embraced, and wept.
It is in the darkness that God comes to the Israelites, only they are not yet Israelites, they are Hebrew slaves, slaves to something or someone other than God. And when a man named Moses leads them out of slavery they rejoice until they come to that impassible barrier of the sea before them. Terrifi ed, they wait, in darkness, as all that would enslave them pursues them, and God sends a wind that blows all night, parting the waters.
And so, they passed from slavery to freedom.
It is in the darkness that the resurrection happens; by the time the women come to the empty tomb, Jesus is already risen. Whatever happened in the darkness, we will never know, but perhaps that is the point – the risen one comes to us beyond our understanding. The Holy Spirit comes in the dark, too deep to comprehend, too mysterious to grasp, too unattainable to attain. Rather, this divine love is measured by the six feet of “outstretched arms” (Old English: fæthm) on the cross of the son of God, who comes to you with an unfathomable gift: grace.
