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”Hearing the (Easter) story the second time around, and every time thereafter, we encounter a grave standing on the boundary where defeat and victory are intimately juxtaposed. This time, on the second day, we are privileged to know already that after yesterday’s defeat, victory tomorrow is secure. Yet we are compelled to know, too, that it is the finally victorious one who even now lies decaying in defeat; and we must face the shocking truth that the seeds of victory lie in both the grave’s defeat and nowhere else, that the only flower of victory is one which germinates and grows in the darkness of a tomb.” – Alan E. Lewis, “Between Cross and Resurrection”

I’m but a few chapters into the above author’s book and, while already questioning his perspective thoughts in at least one paragraph, find myself nonetheless enjoying this plunge into the depths of the Christian narrative. For me, the Gospel has never been “settled”, in so far as my initial point of entry providing all the answers to this mystery of life, and in the truth that the journey since, at any point along the way, has yet to capture God “in a box”. That which continues to draw me into pursuit, however, was never born out of any wish of ever being able conquer all knowledge of who and what He is, but out of a hunger and thirst to experience Him in all that His resurrection extends unto me. Maybe such desired can be better explained by referring to a couple of terms utilized by Lewis to emphasize the importance of that day dividing the securing of our salvation. In speaking of a “theology of the Cross”, he assigns it “abundant social and political consequences through its iconoclasm (attack against) all (other) human concepts” of religion. Nonetheless, in crossing the gap to discuss a “theology of glory”, he requires a “pneumatology” of Calvary subjecting “all the gifts of the Spirit and their application to a radical critique of Christ’s own experience of suffering, weakness, and crucifixion.” If I’m with him thus far, though, he has me wondering if that middle section he is about to explore with me, that time between where Jesus, far from held prisoner in a tomb, is putting His signature on a New Testament covenant in the depths of hell, doesn’t relate to another theology, one yet under construction. In 1st John, the apostle brings forth a “triangulation” connecting heaven and earth, Trinity somehow more than simply “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”. If Paul’s proclamation of the mystery of the “Good News” is Christ “in” me, do I blaspheme if I suggest that me “in” Christ is no less an enigma that each of us must entertain and explore daily? Is there any credence to the possibility that, even if the stone has been rolled away from our heart, in the commandment for us to pick up our own cross and follow Him there is a space wherein each of us “conquer the grave” through a continued surrender unto the tug on our anchor-line……