You can’t stare a cat down. I have tried it with Baxter, and I never win. He usually gets me to laugh by doing something that distracts me even while he’s holding my gaze. Looking into a cat’s eyes is like looking into the abyss. What is going on behind that mysterious stare? Are myriad ideas running through his head about his owner, the weather, food, other cats, the next prank, or is the stare a blank, disguising a vacuous gray matter void of any thoughts? Cat’s eyes are a mystery. They attract us with their colors and their penetrating gaze. The dilating and shrinking of their pupils intrigues us. They appear at different times in different moods—mournful, happy, eager, bored, pensive, and caring. It’s all in the soft, feline eyes, and the eyes are the window of the soul. We are fascinated by their look because we hope to get a glimpse of what makes them tick.
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to look into God’s eyes? What would we see there? Certainly, more mystery than we could ever imagine, and more love than we could ever hope to acknowledge and embrace. But where do we find the eye of God? Easter points the way.
The empty tomb of Christ’s resurrection is the opening to God’s soul. It is the eye we look into to discover who God is for us. Like the eyes of a physical creature, it is a sign of the interior life, a clue to what may be going on inside the mind and heart of its subject. The empty tomb offers no definitive explanation of Christ’s victory over sin and death, but it draws us into this event by raising questions and calming our fears of the darkness we associate with such things. It declares that something happened here unprecedented in human history yet beyond the confines of that history. The eternal God reached into the realm of death and brought forth life that will never die again. He reached into the place where the consequences of human sin left a dead body and healed the effects of sin by raising that body to new life. And the best news of all is that this miracle is not just for the Jesus who was crucified, but through Him, it is for everyone who dies with Christ in baptism. God is the Lord of the living and the dead. God’s Lordship is generous, gracious and loving for us all. Unlike the power of the proud and arrogant, the victory of the Risen Lord is humbly shared with those who share His life. The empty tomb empties the tombs of all who believe in Christ’s power to save. Life is promised for all because one man died for the many.
This is, indeed, a mystery, more perplexing than any bizarre Baxter stare or human look at the unknown. It is the look of Love itself Who created the world and saved it from its own selfishness and limitations. It sees what we can’t see now. It promises what is beyond our ability to grasp. It is communion with God through the portal of what appears most separated and isolated from human contact with another, death. It is Resurrected Life. Nothing can explain it. Nothing can destroy it. But Christian believers throughout the world celebrate it this Easter day as the true heart of God shared with the broken hearts of humanity, making them whole. Alleluia!
Baxter and I wish all our readers a “Happy Easter!”
