Empty

An empty wallet is sad. An empty gas tank is worrying. An empty house is lonely. Empty things long to be filled. At least that’s what we are conditioned to believe. And so we set out trying to fill everything. We fill our days with activity. We fill our calendar with events. We fill our time with people. But in the days leading up to the Easter Triduum, I cannot run away from the emptiness.

The streets are less crowded because people have gone on to their Holy Week destinations. Even the weather stills as the heat becomes unbearable. And although the churches are filled with people, I feel an emptiness creeping in, especially on Good Friday. And because I cannot run away from the emptiness, I decide to welcome it.

 Because the school year always ends before Holy Week, I come into Holy Thursday having just said goodbye to my students at graduation, having said goodbye to co-workers who will no longer be coming back, having just cleaned out my desk and cleaned up my room (a now favorite form of penance). And at the end of the school year, I am always physically and emotionally spent. Drained. Emptied.

And I find that it is actually good for my soul. For to realize that I have emptied myself means that I have at least attempted to love much, give much, sacrifice much. And whether or not the results were fruitful, I can at least take comfort that I have tried. The results of the trial are no longer within my control. There is only the trying…and the emptying.

But the emptiness never lasts very long. As with the experience of having a really good heartbreaking cry or of a thorough closet-cleaning, I then realize that the emptiness shines its light on the things in my life that are of greater value—the gifts of friendship, vocation, family and faith. And in my emptiness I find, that God has filled my life with more than I could have ever deserved.

This paradox of emptiness is most beautifully captured in the Bible story of the empty tomb at Easter. In one gospel, the women come to the empty tomb and are confused. In another gospel, Mary Magdalene finds the tomb empty and runs away from the tomb. Peter and John hear about the empty tomb and run towards the empty tomb. And in another gospel, the chief priests and elders find out about the empty tomb and tell stories to explain the empty tomb. The reality of the empty tomb confounds us all but not all of us react the same way.

Unless you have been living with it all your life (and even then it is difficult), the reality of the Son of God coming down from heaven, taking on human flesh and dying for you can be overwhelming. This total and complete act of surrender, of fully emptying Himself unto death because of love, is too much to bear sometimes. It is too painful, for sometimes to allow ourselves to be loved, and therefore made vulnerable, is painful. But unless we embrace Christ’s immense act of love fully, unless we empty our thoughts of all our preconceived notions of how God should behave, unless we make peace with our emptiness, the significance of the empty tomb at Easter will forever be just beyond our grasp.

The beautiful irony of Easter is that the empty tomb is not empty at all—it, in fact, promises a life of hope, of joy, of faith. A life where emptiness has meaning and fullness of love.

The tomb is empty. The Lord is risen! Happy Easter!