On black holes and empty tombs

For science nerds like myself (because just being a church nerd isn’t nerdy enough…), one of the most mind-blowing news items from last year was the first image taken of a black hole.  The subject of the portrait was the M87, a supermassive black hole that’s 6.5 billion times the mass of our sun, and 53 million light years away.  In the actual picture, it looks rather like a doughnut that’s been set on fire.

Distance wasn’t the only challenge involved with achieving this image.  A much larger problem is that a black hole itself is unseeable.  Its gravitational force is so great, it even draws inside it all the light that could possibly make it visible.  What you can see in the image, that bright ring, is the hot, glowing gas falling across the event horizon.  The event horizon is the point of no return, the point where objects are no longer able to escape the irresistible pull of the black hole – and then they’re gone, we don’t quite know where.  Somewhere into the singularity, where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate.

It is awe-inspiring and terrifying at the same time.

But the thing is, the objects are not gone; they’re just gone from our observable universe.  One theory is that while the black hole is busy pulling everything in on one side, it’s pushing out new creations on the other.  And what looks like death from our vantage point might actually be life, the birth of entire universes.

When the women showed up at the tomb that first Easter morning, there was nothing but death from their vantage point as well.  What they found was the promise that new life had emerged on the other side of tomb.  They had come prepared to be undertakers, but instead, were tasked as midwives: the first witnesses to the crowning of that resurrection life, the first to hold onto that newborn good news, and bear it to others.  And they left with fear and great joy.

In the midst of this pandemic, we may find ourselves leaning more toward fear than joy.  If resting in the promise of the resurrection was a challenge before, we may find it near impossible, with the specter of death so near and potent. And we know that when all is said and done, we will be mourners.  We will be undertakers.  We will need to bear the spices and ointments and words of burial for far too many, and we pray to God for the strength to get us through those holy tasks. 

But we are Easter people, and we are tasked to be midwives to new life.    To cradle in our arms the memory of those who have died, along with the promise that they are not lost.  To welcome into the world new ways of serving our communities and of being the church.  To nurture that appreciation we now have for things we once took for granted, and a new resolve to fight the many injustices revealed and amplified during this pandemic. 

Congratulations; it’s a risen Christ.  May we find joy, and life, in the midst.

Rev. Luanne Panarotti serves as pastor of Pleasant Plains Presbyterian Church in Staatsburg, NY, and as editor of this blog.  For the time being, she is leading worship from her 2^nd floor guest bedroom.