Stones in the Easter Garden

This week, in a field a thousand miles away, my family says goodbye to Beryl Sparks.

That won't mean much to most people, but indulge me for a moment. Beryl was the closest thing to family there is without actually being related. She was my parents' friend, she was the first person my mum left my sister with, she took me to my first Wycombe Wanderers game, she was one of the people that made my childhood special.

It's an odd thing death isn't it? Odd to think about, and odd not to think about. And over the last few months, i've thought about it a lot. My maternal Grandfather, Beryl, and in between, our faithful, lunatic hound, Limestones Burt have all died this summer. It still astonishes me that Grandfather, such a force of life, such an exuberant fount of joy should be gone. He doesn't walk to the Bowjey stores for his Times anymore, he doesn't do his stretches overlooking Newlyn Harbour any more.

But why does death so astonish? Why does death surprise? If, as enlightened minds tell us, death is just part of life, why should it shock us any more than, say, being hungry. Why does death leaves such a gash in the living if it's normal? Not just death, why does the passing of of time shock us so? Five o'clock already? Time to get up? Time to go back to school? If we are supposed to be people that live in a world marked by time, why does time catch us out so? Are fish caught out by being wet? If we're supposed to die, why does death puncture those it leaves?

Well, you know the answer, it's because we're not. Because we're made to be like the One who is outside time. The One who entered time to take us out of it. Jesus, He who was before time began, He for whom time exists, came. Time had no hold on Him except what He gave it, and we are made in His image. So of course time is an unwelcome impostor on our reading, our summers and our lives.

This is our hope, that Jesus came, submitted to time, and bested it, skipping out of the tomb on that first Easter Sunday, Psalm Two playing around His lips. It's our hope that time points to the day He'll come again. He'll come not this time to enter time, but to end it. Earth and sky flee from His presence, and time too. Because He left the tomb, we know one day He'll climb His war horse, and knock time off it's throne.

And death too. Oh yes, and death. Jesus rose, defeating death, and so will we. We'll hear His voice, rise from the stones planted in the Easter garden, and be with Him forever. We'll be outside time, as we were meant to be, we'll be healed of death's sting by our groom. We'll see His face, and He will wipe the tears from ours.