Flesh and Bones

"...I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?'

I said, 'Sovereign LORD, you alone know.'

Then he said to me, 'Prophesy to these bones and say to them, "Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.'"

Ezekiel 37:2-6

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 was last Sunday, as everyone in the world knows. "The whole planet mourns with us," they say. But I heard the speeches, I saw the political posturing, I see the American flag, and I felt nothing but a strange emptiness. To me, all of it seems immeasurably hollow. Now, before I am crucified by my readers, allow me explain.

I will start by bringing to mind the example of a high school graduation: music is played, caps and gowns are donned, speeches are given, and a solemn awe surrounding the magnificence of the future is encouraged. But through it all, everyone sitting in the audience and every single student knows the reality is much more than the hollow good wishes of the speech-givers.

No matter how moving the speeches or how emotional the music or how pompous the dress, nothing can be said or done that reflects the depth of how exciting, depressing, terrible and wonderful the future will be for each student, or even the depth of what they have experienced so far in eighteen measly years. So, on graduation day, each student who is honest with him or herself will have the feeling that something is missing.

To me, the memorializing surrounding this tenth anniversary echoes with the same emptiness. It's not that I don't think that 9/11 was a day horrible beyond words. It's not that I don't feel a deep sadness when I think about how many people died, how many families lost someone who couldn't be replaced. But in all the speeches, all the politics, in all the ceremony, I can't help but feel that something is missing.

That something, I believe, is the breath of truth.

I consider in particular our discussions and attitudes towards death and grief. Instead of letting ourselves break down in weeping, or sit in silence under the weight, or tear our clothes in our anguish, we turn geninue mourning into "a celebration of life." We avoid the pain by talking about the good things the dead accomplished before the end. We look forward to the growth that will come out of the ashes. We convince ourselves that they are in a "better place" and cross our fingers behind our backs.

I do not mean to say that some of these things aren't good and proper, when at the right place and time. But they are not grief. They are not mourning. And when they are confused as such, an empty void takes up the place that rightfully belongs to grief. They become something false, a marble statue compared to a real living, breathing person.

When I think of real grief, living and breathing grief, I think of the scene in heaven in the book of Revelation when all the angels and the creatures and God Himself express furious outrage at the murders of Christians during the tribulation. These deaths are mourned, even though a certain hope of their resurrection and eventual glorifcation is expressed at the same time. How does this make sense? It only does when one realizes that to God, all death is evil in and of itself.

We water down this truth. We say, "They lived, a long full life." Or, "They died sacrificing themselves to save another." Yes, these make death more bearable for us, but they do not make it less of an awful separation.

I think we are afraid to face this reality of the evil of death and truly mourn because that would mean admitting that something is wrong with the world. If we are to say that death is wrong, then we are in fact admitting that death is not the way things are supposed to be. In saying this, we are saying that things were originally designed differently, but something, or someone, made a mistake.

We are, in fact, faced with the reality of God.

The atheist cannot mourn death. How can he? Death is the way of all things that are alive, and if no one died, how could anyone live? Death is natural, normal, for lack of a better word. If they are to mourn, the atheist can only (possibly) mourn the contributions to society that might have been made by the person that died "before their time." But if no contribution really matters, because there is no such thing as eternity, then why should he care? The dead will not only pass out of existence, but also out of memory and time, along with the rest of their species one day, and that will be the end of it.

But with God, we have reason to mourn. God hates death. Death is the perversion, the disease, that plagues the world. And so with God, we can hate death as well. We can wail at it, weep because of it, throw ourselves to the ground in grief. With God, the hollow space is filled with truth: death is shown to be what it is, and we feel its weight in our souls.

So when the speeches last Sunday were all spoken, when all the music had been played, when the memorial was been unveiled, something was still missing. That something, someone, is God. Without knowing His tears, how can we grieve? Without knowing He is angry, how can we express outrage? Without His healing, how can we heal?

And without knowing the He died and rose again to destroy death forever, how can we celebrate?

For without Him, this is the way things always have been and always will be: innocents will be murdered and the guilty will go free, the best young men of a nation will die in its wars. So without Him, there is no reason to have a memorial service at all. Without Him, 9/11 is just the way things are. 9/11 is...normal. And we have no reason to mourn.

Without Him, all things are dry bones. Let us pray for the breath that gives flesh to grief, to celebration, to life.