Today’s find: Entombment

Making my way to the Lone Star State early last week, I awoke to the distinct impression that I had been entombed.

Not sure exactly what I was expecting when my Sweetie booked us into a “Roomette” on Amtrak’s Texas Eagle (for a Spring break trip south with the grandsons). 

But it wasn’t this.

Something akin to a “tube-with-a-view” … not so bad when it’s dusk and the cabin lights are on, but a bit unnerving in the deepdark night. Especially for an Old Dude like me. Irrational ruminations arose, unbidden: 

Where am I? 

Who am I?

So is this it? Have I crossed over?

Then trepidation quickly gave way to sensation – aching joints, pinched nerves, a balky hip-socket – plenty of proof points that my mortal coil had indeed lived to see another day. So thanks be to God for that.

Thanks be to God, too, for the momentary experience of entombment – especially late in the Lenten season. 

I was thinking about that as I meditated on the gospel passage we encounter today: the raising of Lazarus. His name, I’m told, literally translates to “God helps.” No doubt, being a close friend of Jesus, Lazarus believed that about himself even before experiencing the tomb: God does help. God is, in fact, the source of all help. 

God it is Who gives us life.

One thing I notice about Lent is how it can tempt me to lose sight of God’s prevenient providence. My fasting, my holy practices … they can create false impressions in my spirit. They can feed a sense of self-sufficiency, as if I’m wrangling on my own to earn God’s favor. As if I am conquering sin, or the sinful tendencies, in my spirit.

Entombment – even a brief irrational experience of it – works to strip away that illusion. Like Lazarus, who is helpless to free himself from the burial shroud, I am bidden to rely on Christ … “on the spirit of Christ who gives life,” as St. Paul puts it in his letter to the church in Rome.

I am bidden to make this choice, or to renew it, during the holy season of Lent. 

How will I respond?

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS