THE ROCK-SOLID TRUTH OF HOLY WEEK
Since their discovery by a mining prospector in the early 1900s, visitors to Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California, have been fascinated by what are dubbed its sailing stones. The rocks at Racetrack Playa seem to move on their own during the nighttime hours, leaving a track or trail behind them in the sand. In 2013, researchers used GPS and time-lapse photography to record the movement of approximately 60 rocks, some of which move as much as 224 meters during the dark of night. A few rocks move not just once but as many as five times in the nighttime hours.
No wonder, then, that these sailing stones in Death Valley are so fascinating to people. How can rocks, which are seemingly so immovable and fixed in space and time, move on their own across the desert sands? They seem to violate everything our common sense tells us about rocks and large stones.
“Rock solid,” we like to say about something unmovable and permanent. One famous insurance company uses the image of the Rock of Gibraltar as its logo, communicating its solidity and dependability. To have a “stone cold heart” is to be unmoved and unmovable. Likewise, we call someone “stone-faced” when she or he appears emotionless. But perhaps rocks are more moveable than we imagine.
In our scripture readings from Palm Sunday to Easter, we are confronted with multiple references to rocks and stones. On Palm Sunday, Jesus refuses to silence the crowds. The stones, he tells his detractors, will shout out if the crowd were to fall silent. On the rocky outcropping of Golgotha, Jesus is crucified. And the women going to the tomb discover the stone miraculously rolled away just like those sailing or sliding stones of Death Valley that seem to roll mysteriously along the desert floor. Later, his followers will describe Jesus as the stone that the builders rejected that has become the cornerstone of a new reality that God is opening up for all people.
The stones we encounter in our journey from Palm Sunday to Easter are a bit like Death Valley’s sailing stones. Things are not always as they seem. Rock-solid certainties melt into new configurations and permutations. The shouting crowd turns against Jesus as quickly as it sang its hosannas. The stone that the builders rejected as unusable becomes the cornerstone of faith. The stones of Golgotha meant to crush Jesus and silence his message become the foundation stones of a new people of God. The stone meant to seal Jesus in a stone-cold tomb moves mysteriously away and reveals not just an empty tomb but a risen life.
What are the stones in your life that seem to block your path? Crush your hopes? Do your fears and worries sometimes seem as immovable and unchangeable as heavy stones? The good news of Holy Week and Easter is that these stones can never ultimately crush us or block our way. Like those sailing stones, the winds of God’s grace and mercy can shift them aside when we least understand or expect it, opening new paths for our lives. The good news of our journey from Palm Sunday through Good Friday and then Easter is that the stone that was rolled across Jesus’ tomb becomes the ultimate sailing stone that opens a path to new life and possibility.
On the Lenten journey with you,
Pastor Thomas