Transfiguration

On this Saturday before Easter we remember that Jesus’s body lay in a tomb, subject to decay. Yet as we prepare for tomorrow, we know that when Jesus’s disciples and friends came to visit him in the tomb, they discovered that the stone had been rolled away. As we say farewell to our loved ones in this world, we may experience the holy moments when the body leaves the soul, as well as the grief of sitting with the body they have left behind. Yet we can also sense through grief the release and joy they must feel in their transition to a new state of being, because the scripture has given us these words: “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”

Transfiguration

When I enter your room
for the last time, I see a shell—
broken—your head thrown back,
mouth open—as though something
has hatched and taken flight.

Just this morning I rubbed
your ankles with oil, but now
your legs are stiff to the touch,
purple stains pool under tissue paper skin
as capillary walls give way,

the process of return
beginning. At the hospital entrance,
I met the women weeping—
mother, sister, niece, pastor—
who tell me the story of your last

breath, which I imagine now—
my sister plays
her violin—Cast thy Burden
Upon the Lord—and after days
of uphill breathing your face reflects

a moment of sheer delight—Christ
We Do All Adore Thee. I carry
this story with me like a garment.
Each time I tell it the circle widens
as with the telling of another

story, an empty tomb,
the stone rolled away,
and nothing to fill
the empty space
but language.

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 (NRSV)

If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

²⁰But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. ²¹For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; ²²for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. ²³But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. ²⁵For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶The last enemy to be destroyed is death.