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Air - Lent: A Spring Season

A Tomb and a Womb

Steve Watson

Apr 20, 2025

Well, friends, tomorrow is Patriot’s Day. I love this holiday. We remember the shot heard round the world just over in Lexington. There is always a daytime Red Sox game that lets thousands of fans out at the end just in time to cheer for the runners of the Boston Marathon as they struggle through their final mile. I love this city, and that marathon. I am a three-time Boston Marathon alum, and though I cannot run it anymore, I still try to have at least one runner that I can root for.

This year, that runner is Ben Burgess. Ben’s story is extraordinary. The Globe did a piece about Ben and his mom Lisa who’s also running. See when Ben was just 8 years old, his father put his hands on his shoulders, told him,

“You’re the man of the house now,”

and left home for good. Eight years old. Two years ago Ben was also diagnosed with a significant mental health disorder, one he believes has genetic roots that run back through his father, who was an alcoholic, and his grandmother who suffered trauma in a Canadian boarding school for indigenous children. Ben and his sister were on a panel about indigenous runners this weekend. And Ben and his mother are raising awareness about grief and mental health and wellness. And tomorrow, I will be rooting for them with bells on. I don’t even know Ben personally, only through mutual acquaintances in the local running community, but I am so proud of that young man.

I love Patriot’s Day, and I love Easter too. Today we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it is traditional for churches to proclaim the life of Christ, and the great hope of our faith, with a three-fold proclamation of the mystery of Easter – to say Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed.

So as I proclaim the hope, the mystery of Easter – Christ is risen, please respond after me if you will – Christ is risen indeed.

Christ is risen – Christ is risen indeed

I’m going to read the final chapter of the first of the Bible’s four memoirs of the life of Jesus, the good news according to Matthew. It’s very dramatic. As you listen, I want to ask you:

see if you can hear at least one thing you like, and one thing you don’t like.

You ready?

Matthew 28 (Common English Bible)

28 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the tomb.

2 Look, there was a great earthquake, for an angel from the Lord came down from heaven. Coming to the stone, he rolled it away and sat on it.

3 Now his face was like lightning and his clothes as white as snow.

4 The guards were so terrified of him that they shook with fear and became like dead men.

5 But the angel said to the women, “Don’t be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.

6 He isn’t here, because he’s been raised from the dead, just as he said. Come, see the place where they laid him.

7 Now hurry, go and tell his disciples, ‘He’s been raised from the dead. He’s going on ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there.’ I’ve given the message to you.”

8 With great fear and excitement, they hurried away from the tomb and ran to tell his disciples.

9 But Jesus met them and greeted them. They came and grabbed his feet and worshipped him.

10 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Go and tell my brothers that I am going into Galilee. They will see me there.”

11 Now as the women were on their way, some of the guards came into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened.

12 They met with the elders and decided to give a large sum of money to the soldiers.

13 They told them, “Say that Jesus’ disciples came at night and stole his body while you were sleeping.

14 And if the governor hears about this, we will take care of it with him so you will have nothing to worry about.”

15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were told. And this report has spread throughout all Judea to this very day.

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus told them to go.

17 When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.

18 Jesus came near and spoke to them, “I’ve received all authority in heaven and on earth.

19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

20 teaching them to obey everything that I’ve commanded you. Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age.”

One thing I like: we have this daring, feminist touch here with the women who are tending to the grave. In a time and place where women’s testimony was not legitimized, they become the first witnesses to the good news of Easter. Angels in Jerusalem tell them: go to Galilee to see Jesus. And then later that day, Jesus can’t help himself, he shows up in Jerusalem too, like:

Surprise! I’m here!

And then when they’re grabbing his feet and trying to worship him – whoosh! He’s off to Galilee again, and the male disciples who haven’t yet seen Jesus are supposed to trust the word of these women, and journey 90 miles north on foot – that’s like four marathons away – to go see Jesus up on that mountain in Galilee. And they do.

There’s a word here, brothers: trust the women. Trust the women. Bible says so. I like that.

What I’ve never liked though is the whole argument about the empty tomb. Over the first century, team Jesus says the tomb’s empty because Jesus is resurrected. And the guards and all the Romans who don’t believe and all the people of Jesus’ own culture who don’t believe – team not Jesus have this whole conspiracy argument about a stolen body that they use, Matthew says.

And this argument kind of annoys me. One, I just don’t like it when people argue, I guess. And two, this argument gets weaponized. In the first century, it’s weaponized by team not Jesus. The colonizers and the persecutors of the Way of Jesus try to mock and dis-validate the faith of the early Christians. And then later, when the Christians have power, this argument is used anti-Semitically to mock and dis-validate and hurt the Jewish faith and culture. So this whole empty tomb argument has never been my favorite Bible moment.

But, friends, this year the Tomb is speaking to me.

Because it tells me that two things can be true at once – that the tomb can be a tomb, and that the tomb can also be a womb. A tomb is a tomb, but on Easter, the mystery is that the tomb can also be the birthplace of new life: a tomb becomes a womb.

I gave a talk at our church retreat in March about how two things can be true at once, and I used the ancient spiritual imagery of the mandorla to show this.

Mandorla is Italian for an almond. Can you say “mandorla”? So google the word “mandorla” and you’ll find recipes for almond cookies and other delicious things. But you’ll also find images like this.

SLIDE #2: Mandorla Jesus- see image on YouTube video

This is a stylized picture of Jesus surrounded by four creatures that are animals and angels and symbols for the Bible’s four gospels all at once. It’s a weird and creepy image in its own way. And I love it and could say a lot about it, but today I just want to highlight the shape Jesus is in. It’s a glowing orb of light in the shape of an almond. A mandorla.

And in pre-Renaissance European art, you get these mandorlas of light around Jesus and other holy people, representing how special they are.

This mandorla shape symbolized a lot of things – God, light, holiness, also the mothers’ wombs out of which we were all born. Because at the end of the birth canal, we all enter the world through our mother’s mandorlas, so to speak.

This mandorla symbol persists in architecture as the almond-shaped sliver at the intersection of two circles. Like so:

SLIDE #3: Mandorla Two Things- see YouTube video for image

And here, it can represent something else. The mandora can remind us that two things which seem different have a space where parts of both of them can be true.

This weekend can be Patriot’s Day and Easter, two very different holidays. But here in Massachusetts, we can have Patriot’s Day Easter. Two things true at once.

You can dearly love your mother, father, son, daughter, best friend, roommate, boss, whoever but on the wrong day, you can also kind of hate that person you love. Two things can be true at once.

And Matthew’s resurrection story gives us a lot of mandorla paradoxes, two things that can at the same time be true.

Because we know that life can be very lonely sometimes. Maybe your beloved parent or spouse has died. Or maybe you’ve grown apart from an old best friend. Or maybe you’ve moved back home and your friends are moving on with other things, and you feel stuck. Or maybe you’re 8 years old and your father puts his hands on your shoulders and says: you’re the man of the house now, and doesn’t return. And these are hard, hard things to go through. Life can be very lonely. But then here comes risen Jesus who says:

I will be with you every day. Every day. My spirit is with you, until the very end of this age.

And so I pray these words for my mother in law, every time I see her where she lives now, in a bed, in a nursing home, because I think they are among the truest words of all the words, that we are never alone. That God is always with us.

Two things can be true at once. That we can be lonely, and yet also never alone.

Or the big commission at the end of Matthew. These disciples are meant to go out into all the world, and to teach people the ways of Jesus. I don’t think Matthew or Jesus ever meant for them to be the arrogant colonizers some of their Christian descendants became. Jesus never told them they have ALL the answers, or ALL the truth. He just said

teach ‘em what I gave you, and – for the people who want – baptize them, welcome them to the faith.

He didn’t say to enslave anyone, or steal their land, or steal their gold, or fly their country’s flags. Because two things can be true at once. You can know you have a great gift to give and offer that gift, without assuming you have ALL the gifts in the world or without imposing your gifts on people that don’t want them.

These mandorla lessons that two things can be true at once are all over the gospel of Matthew and its final chapter, like a tomb can be a tomb, but a tomb can also be a womb.

No matter what resurrection is, it is not resuscitation, like going back to what was before. The disciples, be it at the graveside, or in Jerusalem, or up on that mountain in Galilee, get to see Jesus again in the flesh. They do. But it’s fleeting. The days of literally following Jesus around as he taught and healed and broke bread with us have passed. To experience the risen Christ through the Spirit of God, to see the risen Christ in the eyes and the love and courage of God’s people, to touch and taste the risen Christ in the bread and the wine of communion takes faith. It’s not always easy. The death of Jesus was real.

But in Jesus’ resurrection, this tomb also becomes a womb. It is the site of Jesus’ resurrection. It is a new beginning of a great age of the Spirit of God, where all of God is present to all of us, if we will believe and receive.

I’ve had some tastes of this, friends, for instance at this site of resurrection right there in my tiny little yard.

SLIDE #4: The Azuma Tree – see image on YouTube video

This is a picture of a little ornamental tree in our family’s tiny little urban yard. It was taken just this week, so there are no flowers or leaves yet, just little buds. But it’s a beautiful little tree, ready to flash with all the green of life again any day now. Life that was also born out of a gravesite, another tomb becomes a womb.

My family had for 10 years a sweet, troubled cat named Azuma. He was problematic in some ways, but I still loved him, and when he died in 2020, it was one more horrible, sad, no good loss in a year that was full of losses. But after we buried his body together, my wife Grace planted this beautiful little tree, so that this gravesite could become a place of new life.

And as it blossoms again each spring, I touch the leaves, which when they’re just unfolding, as they are today, look like a 100 tiny little birds in flight. And I think, my God, you’ve done it again, Life born out of all that’s dying. Another sign of resurrection power. A tomb becomes a womb.

Friends, while the resurrection of Christ may have taken place in Jerusalem, nearly 2,000 years ago, echoes of resurrection abound throughout this earth. Life out of death, resurrection, is the miracle that can’t stop giving.

The dissolution of a family unit, mental health crises, generational trauma from American schools that were tools of genocide, a breakdown and a bipolar diagnosis, these things in the life of the Burgess family are tragedies, they are tombs. They are not the work or the gifts of our good and loving God. And yet, by God’s grace, this tomb of the Burgess family is now the site of stories of love and resilience and courage that will have our city cheering and raising to support grieving children. This tomb is the site of new life. Resurrection power.

And so it is with us.

When we look around our lives and we see our dead and dying dreams, our struggling children, our failing nation, the stories of flagging finances and fragile bodies and frustratingly struggling mental wellness, we often see a landscape of the tombs of all that has failed and come undone.

But the witnesses to the risen Christ dare us to believe that death need not have the final word. That all our tombs can one day be places where the spirit of Jesus says: surprise! In the form of redemption and newness of life.

Think for a minute about a tomb in your life – a place of loss, death, or disappointment.

What if it’s not just a place of death but of new life waiting to be born?

If that was so, what prayer would you pray? What tree would you plant? What race would you run?

The forces of death and evil win when we yield to them like they’ve got the last word.

But the risen Christ dares us to believe that we too can go where Christ has gone. The tomb become a womb is not just for Christ, but for us all. Jesus, the faith tells us, is just the firstfruits of so much newness of life waiting to be born.

And so a tomb is a tomb – that’s real. But friends, a tomb can also be a womb.

And if that’s hard for you to believe today, that’s OK. Because even when we don’t believe in God, God doesn’t stop believing in us. Even when we don’t believe in life out of death, God’s still vying for it.

Because fear and doubt do not need to be the enemy of faith. You can have faith and fear together, and you can have doubt and faith together too.

After all, the disciples do. Did you hear it? Matthew says:

When they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted.

And some of us too. Faith comes hard for some of us. Faith has disappointed some of us in the past. There are terrible things that masquerade as the Way of Jesus and as Christian love and truth these days.

So our doubt, our fear, our skepticism, that’s fair. Maybe we’ve earned it.

But what if God’s OK with that? What if right there in your doubt, you can begin to hope to see the life of God made real in this Easter season.

And what if right here in our fears, we can remember that all authority has been given to no human. Our lives end. One way or another, justice comes. And for even the most braggadocious of tyrants and bullies, their power isn’t as deep or wide as they pretend it is.

After all, 250 years ago, right up the road from here, a ragtag band of upstart colonists began their fight against the most powerful empire on earth, and they won. Here we are.

And where our cat Azuma died, a beautiful little tree is blooming again in spring.

And where death in so many forms has tried to destroy the Burgess family of Framingham, they’re running with resilience and life tomorrow.

In just a couple of minutes, I’m going to dunk Naomi Gramling under the water back there, representing the dying of the old self. But less than a second later, she’ll emerge again, soaking wet – the waters representing the life and the Spirit of God, with her now and forever. And she will arise to newness of life!

Friends, baptized or not, some of us are living in that in between moment, under the water, holding our breath, feeling like the tomb of our loss, or our loved one’s loss, or our nation’s loss is the end of the story.

And with resurrection faith, I want us to say NO to that.

Friends, get up!

For real, literally, stand if you are able.

Breathe! We are alive.

God has not stopped believing in you!

And our God is not done with resurrection!

Christ is risen.

Christ is risen!

Us too. Us too. Watch for it. Wait for it. Work for it. It’s coming. Amen?