The only problem with Holy Week is we know the end of the story. Every year, I have the hope of living into the reality of Holy Week — to fully experience Jesus’ passion, as well as the fear and mourning among his disciples. I have never succeeded, though; because I know Easter is just a few days away. How can one fully feel Jesus’ death when one knows he is rising again?
This year, I think I got a faint taste of what it was like.
This past Wednesday [April 19, 2000] was the fifth anniversary of the worst terrorist incident in the United States. One hundred sixty-eight people were killed, nineteen of them children, simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time: in or near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Wednesday morning, the survivors and those directly affected by the bombing held a private memorial service. All day Wednesday, I went around in a fugue state - as a faint echo of the pain and anger I felt five years ago in the wake of the actual event.
Late Friday evening, I went to the memorial site with a friend. There are two gates, the 9:01 and the 9:03; the reflecting pool which stretches between them represents the two minutes which changed history. On one side of the pool is a section of the original federal building wall, and in the lawn between the wall and the pool are one hundred sixty-eight chairs (nineteen of which are child sized) to represent the victims. On the other side of the pool is what has become known as the survivor tree — a tree which not only survived the original bombing, but has also survived storms and disease.
Family members left several mementoes in the chairs. I was especially moved by the stuffed toys left in the children’s chairs. But I was also touched by things like the golf balls left on the chair of a marine who had died that day.
None of those one hundred and sixty-eight will be back on this earth. Those chairs, and the objects in and around those chairs, tell us that each person lives on in the memory of those who loved them.
That reflecting pool represents two minutes in history when the world changed forever. As I visited the pool, I relived that day - the conflicting reports; the accounts of heroism; the rising death toll. It was not a mere remembering, that awful day was real to me once more. That reflecting pool was like a time machine which allowed me to partake once more in the full experience of that moment.
The cross is a similar instrument. Imagine, for a moment, the cross as a series of squares: one square for the head, one each for the arms; a square for the intersection; and two squares for the foot. If you drew this figure on sturdy paper or cardboard, you could fold it into a box. That box is the limits of space and time. The cross explodes those limits, and invites us into the eternal present.
Each week we partake in Holy Communion, and this is a time when we dip into that eternal present. With the cross, this is our reflecting pool where we join Jesus and his followers in their holy meal; not as a dim memory or a sweet story told, but as a dynamic and on-going reality.
I do believe Jesus returned from the dead, and appeared to his disciples in a way we can barely picture or understand. I also believe that Jesus remains present to us today. Our challenge is to peer deeply into the heart of the cross so we may become aware of his presence.
Note: After September 11, 2001, the April 19th
bombing can no longer be called “the worst terrorist incident in the United States.”
It remains, however, the worst incident of domestic terrorism. It
may be the worst violence committed by one American against his fellow citizens
since the Civil War.
This collection of photographs, along with the accompanying essays, is my attempt to further capture the
anamnesis offered by the reflecting pool and the gates of time.