Day 36 | April 12

it was a Saturday morning...we sat in a booth near the back of the cafe. Our trio had gathered to ask questions regarding the Eternal, to speak of Hope, to not only wonder but also wander. This day was about the journey.

The learned one of our trio holds multiple degrees and a pedigree that is second to none. He, too, joins to not only consider what the Mystery has beheld in each of our journeys but to also hold and seek the next steps along this path.

It was not long before our conversation turned toward asking our academic friend about his thoughts of the resurrection. Without hesitation and with a firm gaze, he looked directly into our eyes across the booth. We await his words and he says this....
“On more than one occasion I sat in moments with Jurgen Moltmann listening to how his Theology of Hope was further developed. While he can speak or write volumes on the topic, he always became animated in this, the pivotal moment of his journey”. Recalling their visit in the 1970s, he was at Auschwitz with Moltman. Moltman knelt in the midst of the camp near where the massive ovens, once used for human extinction, were. He bowed over the soil, not only in reverence but even more, because of emotion in the moment. Little had changed in the soil through the decades that had since followed.

Moltmann, filling his cupped hands with the loose soil, lifted the earth above head high. Slowly opening his fingers to allow the particles to slip through, the sunlight filtering the darkness hidden within, Moltmann feeling the immensity in the featherweight of the aftermath the ovens produced; yes, including the chards of human bone, passing between his fingers as each sought life. Time stood still. As the final bits passed, with gray ash and soil remaining on his hands and face his voice broke the silence..."this cannot be the final words". In this we understand the Death of the Cross and Hope of the resurrected Christ.

Across the table I looked into our friend's eyes as he replayed the vivid memory of Moltmann's experience...his eyes vibrantly say. “Today, in our humanness, pain, and struggle....’this cannot be the final words’”.

In each of our own moments of pain and struggle the resurrection of the Christ begins. This moment of death is not the final word.