Monday, April 02, 2018

Questions for the Guard

Easter Monday
Matthew 27:8-15

You were bribed to keep your mouth shut though your eyes were wide open.  They were not shut.  You were not sleeping.  You saw what you saw and yet, now, coins fill your pockets but your heart is empty.

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How do you sleep at night?  How do you ever close your eyes again after what you saw...and denied?  Does the glorious image of the Resurrection now float behind your sleeping eyes as a nightmare?  Do you find yourself awakened by your own body falling to the stone floor just as you fell back when you saw the angels?  Can you ever dream a pleasant dream again after denying that which the prophets of old longed to see? 

Do you and your cohorts exchange haunted glances in the halls and on the parade grounds?  Do you ever begin a conversation with another soldier about that fateful morning?  Does he answer your inquest with a head shake as though trying shake the image from his mind once again?  Did you, and they, try to reason away what it was that you saw?  Was it the stress of war, illness, or a bad batch of wine that opened your eyes to see Him who changed water into wine, death into Life?

Do you see His face in the common man on the street and does your heart skip a beat? Are you hesitant to visit the tombs of your own loved ones for fear that He may be there, perhaps looking like a gardener or a rabbi?  Are you haunted by the echo of that great stone slowly rolling away as you looked on helplessly?  Does the morning sun shining through the windows make you jump to your feet in fear and trembling as though you are living that great and terrible morning once again?

Were your coins spent on women and wine in an attempt to forget it all?  Do you see the angels in your drunken stupor, the women, Him?  Why is it that you still hold on to that last coin?  Why do you refuse to spend it?  Is it a charm to ward off that which you cannot keep at bay?  Is it the only weight that is keeping you moored to this passing earth?  When will you let go of it and let Him in?

How will you spend the rest of your years?  Will you continue to try and run from Him?  Will you come to terms with what you know you saw...and denied?  Will you convert?  Will you leave everything and live for the only One who is worth dying for?  What have you to say, you, who after all these years still guard an empty tomb?

More from James M. Hahn can be found on this blog or on his Author Page at Amazon.


Maolsheachlann said...

If Longinus the spear-carrier became a saint, as tradition has it, perhaps we can hope the same for these soldiers...

James Hahn said...

Amen, I should hope so as well! God bless you!

What do I still lack?