I can’t resist wandering through old cemeteries when we travel. Countless times I’ve asked My Love to pull over the car so I can walk “just one more time” among the dead.
Louisiana fascinated me with its above ground crypts. Towering box monuments during the day. Spooky shadows and eerie blind corners at night. I’ll keep my sightseeing to sunlit hours, thank you Hollywood.
Prague’s Old Jewish Cemetery is a holy, messy jumble. Tombstones list and lean, unable to bear witness to all that lies below without collapsing on one another in grief.
This spring, I was spellbound by the Scottish cemeteries laid out around old churches.
At St. John’s Scottish Episcopalian Church in Ballachulish, there are far more headstones than pews.
If you want to go into the house of the Lord in the village of Luss, you must first proceed through a graveyard.
Cemetery-walking is not without risk. How far in can one go before blanching at death’s venom. Maggie’s marker was as far as I made it.
IN
LOVING MEMORY OF
(WEE) MAGGIE
THIRD DAUGHTER OF
ROBERT & JANET DUNN
DIED 23RD DEC. 1890,
AGED 10 YEARS.
Parents are supposed to die first, then their children. But death doesn’t bother itself with convention.
THIS MEMORIAL IS ERECTED BY
HIS SORROWING PARENTS
TO THE MEMORY OF THEIR SON
JAMES MARQUIS OF GRAHAM
BORN 22 JUNE 1847
DIED 3 APRIL 1872
The lichen bids us to slow, parse each word, and absorb the broken-heartedness.
JAMES 11TH BARONET OF COLQUHOUN
AND LUSS, BORN FEBRUARY 7TH 1804,
JOHN BOY I, BORN APRIL 23RD 1829,
JAMES SPOTTISWOOD, BORN MARCH 1 1832,
ANGUS MACDONALD, BORN 15TH 1839,
THOMAS ANDERSON, BORN JUNE 25TH 1856
WHO WERE ALL DROWNED TOGETHER IN
LOCH LOMOND OF DECEMBER 18TH 1873.
When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee; and
through the rivers, they shall
not overflow thee. Isaiah XLIII-2
Who, dear God, can write such a thing when in fact the waters did passest through and overwhelm. Who?
The answer I hear back while standing there is a question: “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” These are Jesus’ words as recorded by Luke.
Ask any of us in a field of lilies at sunrise with song birds on our shoulders and the answer comes easily. Jesus, however, doesn’t shy away from asking it in hard places. Like a gravesite, which feels a bit callous considering that at the edge of a burial plot, most of us are barely hanging on to our emotions, not to mention our umbrellas, tissues, and roses. Please don’t ask about our faith while we are this raw and snotty. And yet, outside the tomb of her beloved brother, Jesus asks Martha, “Do you have faith?”
On the night my father was carried out on a stretcher, I grabbed my bible before following the EMTs to the ambulance. I say this not in arrogance or pride. Jesus is the sole author and perfecter of my faith. Running down 3 flights of stairs did I have faith? Yes, but also the sense that its viscosity was about to be evaluated.
Was it sticky enough to holdfast when the rivers and fires roared? When the doctors pronounced death’s arrival for the man I thought hung the moon? The shock of that dark night was so overwhelming that I don’t remember many details. If I only clutched the blue leather or actually opened my Bible, I do not know. Simply breathing felt nearly impossible.
For his memorial service, some absurd person decided we should sing the hymn “It Is Well With My Soul.” Really?! Who, dear God, can proclaim “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way” while standing 12 feet from a coffin? Who! My mother sat on one side of me, my father’s father on the other. They sang. I was lost as sea billows rolled.
My mother was tossed a thousand pieces of our shattered lives to try to assemble into some sort of new image. My brother and I navigated school in a fog. Algebra, prom, youth group ski trips, all feeling like senseless motions. Yet we showed up every day on time as the school bell rang.
And the three of us all went to church every Sunday. We’d ease in as the service started and then ease back out during the final prayer when everyone’s eyes were closed. Please don’t ask us how we are and make liars out of us right there in the church lobby. Was it well with our souls? No, not all the time. Not even half the time in those early days.
There were tender interludes though. Moments of mercies when, as the songwriter notes:
“Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.”
And I could whisper back with tears:
“Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.”
Right in the middle of it all.
Is faith like that worth anything? Or are we merely uttering words of foolishness?
If we sat at the feet of Jesus, what would He say about it?
“The kingdom of heaven is like, oh wait a second,” I imagine Him saying. Looking out over the crowd He calls all the children close to him, “Come up front little ones. I have a story about a hidden treasure.” His eyes sparkle. “Philip and Bartholomew, for kingdom’s sake, scoot out of the way and make a path for the children.”
Jesus leans down to all the little faces and asks, “Who has ever been working in the field with their Abba or Ema and wished they’d find a treasure chest instead of more rocks and weeds?”
Tiny hands shoot up. Some big, calloused ones in the back do too.
“What would you do if you found such a treasure?”
They give Jesus lots of ideas:
“Throw a big party.”
“Get new sandals and a baby lamb.”
“Repair our fishing nets.”
“Give some to the synagogue.”
“Buy every honey cake in the market.”
“Oh those sound delightful,” He responds. “But you cannot simply take a treasure out of a field if you have not first bought that field.”
The children nod their understanding, but they’re a bit deflated.
Then one girl waves her hand. “Yes, Anna?” says Jesus.
“I know what I would do. I’d throw dirt back over the treasure and then go tell my Abba to buy the field!”
“That’s an excellent idea! But it’s a pricey field. It will cost your Abba everything.”
The little girl pauses for a moment considering the dilemma. Then continues, “Well, if it’s a really valuable treasure, like a lot of gold, then it would be worth it.”
“Ah, very clever, my daughter. The treasure would have to be very precious indeed for someone to consider selling everything.”
Now let’s pause right here. The Sunday School lesson for this story is familiar: Jesus is the best treasure ever. He’s worth selling everything for. Raise your hand if you want Jesus, along with some cookies and milk.
What if we flipped it around? What kind of treasure would Jesus have to find that would cause Him to sell everything and buy that field?
Gold?
Nope.
Power?
Ha!
Good works?
Don’t even.
How about faith?
The kind that’s been submersed in suffering yet hasn’t disintegrated.
The kind that life’s pain has whittled down yet a mustard seed-size remains.
The kind on the other side of trials and suffering.
Faith of this kind, says St. Peter, is more precious than gold.
It takes a stone cutter a little while to meticulously inscribe faith like this.
HE DIED IN THE BRIGHT MORNING OF LIFE
IN PEACEFUL AND FIRM RELIANCE IN HIS ETERNAL SALVATION
THROUGH THE MERCY OF HIS HEAVENLY FATHER
ALMIGHTY GOD
GIVE TO HIS AFFLICTED FAMILY
THAT PEACE WHICH THOU ALONE CAN GIVE
Firm reliance in eternal salvation. What is faith if not confidently etching in rock what we do not see but hope for.
Your faith.
My faith.
Precious-metal faith.
What would the Father do for a treasure like that?
Picture the tenderness of Jesus as He finishes His story:
“Remember now, the treasure in the field is hidden from plain view. It looks like mere stones and dry bones to most people. So for a while, no one will understand why your Abba is giving up his most beloved possessions. He’ll be ridiculed for not retaining his status. Shamed for selling his house having then no place to lay his head. He’ll be naked too, for the price of the field will require all his garments. The humiliation will be severe, and he too will be acquainted with suffering.”
The children blink back tears at the thought.
“Yet,” Jesus says, drawing their eyes back to Him. “There is six-foot deep faith buried in that field. It’s very precious to him. For faith like that, a Redeemer will indeed come. He will come with peace, restorative healing, and full resurrection. When He finds that treasure, for the joy set before Him, He will sell all that He has and buy the entire field.”
The children all begin to smile again.
Only in fields of God’s grace can we ever set up markers like this:
ERECTED
BY
JOHN & JANET JAMIESON
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
THEIR SON
JOHN
WHO DIED 17TH DECEMBER, 1907
AGED 28 YEARS
THEIR SON ROBERT
KILLED IN ACTION IN FRANCE
4TH JULY 1917 AGED 28 YEARS
…
“UNTIL THE DAY DAWN AND
THE SHADOWS FLEE AWAY.”
I wandered many of the Scottish cemeteries thinking “These are my people.” It was a strange thought for I am neither Scottish, nor dead. But I wasn’t thinking about those buried under my feet. I was thinking about those who did the burying and tried to remain on their feet.
The mamas and papas.
The husbands and wives.
The children, as I was.
When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?
Yes. The kind worthy of a Treasure Seeker.
Lord, come quickly and unbury us.
