Willie Lincoln's Easter

William Wallace Lincoln died of typhoid fever at about 5 pm on February 20 of 1862, less than a year into the Civil War.  He was eleven years old.  He was not the first child that Abraham and Mary Lincoln had lost.  Their son Edward, not yet four years old, had died twelve years earlier.  But Willie’s death, by all accounts, was harder on them.  At first sight of his son’s lifeless body, President Lincoln is widely reported to have said, “My poor boy.  He was too good for this earth.  God called him home.  I know that he is much better off in heaven, but then we loved him so.  It is hard, hard to have him die.”[i]

The brilliant and imaginative contemporary writer George Saunders published a novel in February of this year that imagines what took place among the dead who were supposedly already at rest in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown on the night of February 24, when Willie Lincoln’s body was placed there in the Carroll Family vault (Lot 292).  President Lincoln is believed to have visited the stone mausoleum several times, stooping beneath its arched entryway, maybe even on that first night after the funeral, and to have asked to have the casket opened.  There is some debate about whether or not the Lincolns believed that the living could communicate with the dead; but they were Presbyterians, so I can neither account for nor even vaguely imagine what they might have believed.

Saunders’s book imagines that young Willie found himself in “the bardo,” that is, in a sort of limbo, a liminal place or condition that is part of Tibetan Buddhist thought, in between lives, a “bodiless state that exists in the lag between one incarnation and the next.”[ii]  In Saunders’s imagination it is a difficult state in which to be.  Many of the souls there in the cemetery with Willie – let’s call them ‘ghosts’ for lack of a better word – are there because they have not accepted that they are really dead.  They insist that they are only sick, their bodies, quite removed from their souls, are “sick-forms” resting in “sick boxes,” until they can return to the unfinished business, hopes, and dreams of their lives on earth.

For Willie, this in-between state is somewhat tantalizing not only because he is so young, but also because of the visit of his beloved and be-loving father, who is struggling to let go of his dead child, just as the child is struggling to let go of his father.  Saunders imagines Lincoln thinking:

“His little face again.  Little hands.  Here they are.  Ever will be.  Just so.  No smile.  Ever again.  The mouth a tight line.  He does not (no) look like he is sleeping…

 “If there ever really was a Lazarus, there should be nothing preventing the conditions that pertained at that time to pertain here and now….

 “Mr. Lincoln tried to get the sick-form to rise.  By making his mind quiet and then opening it up to whatever might exist that he did not know about that might be able to …make [the boy] rise…

 “Please please please.

 “But no.

That is superstition.

“Will not do.” [iii]

There is no amusement to be found in imaging the grief of a father (or a mother) for his (or her) dead child.  The question – for the parents, most poignantly – is whether or not there is any meaning in that death.  Or to put it in a Christian way, the question is whether or not that death leads only to the grave, or whether or not death leads beyond the cemetery to some new life, prepared for us by the God who made us and who loves us?

Easter is, of course, the day for empty graves – well, at least the day for one empty tomb.  And what a joy it is to be here and to proclaim the Good News of that empty tomb and of our risen Lord!  In truth, however, you probably do not need me to reiterate this story for you.

But it may be that, like Abraham Lincoln, you have had trouble letting go of someone who has died.  It may be that that someone is a child.  It may be that you have wondered, still wonder, if that death has any meaning.  It may be that you have wondered, or still wonder, whether or not death leads only to the grave, whether or not death leads beyond the cemetery to some new life prepared for us by the God who made us and who loves us.  This is a poignant question.  And it may be that the question on Easter Day that is far more poignant than the disposition of Jesus’ grave, is the disposition of Willie Lincoln’s grave; the more poignant question being the status of the body and soul of someone from whose grave the stone has not been rolled away.  What does Easter mean to the dead?

In nine pages of exquisite writing, George Saunders allows himself to imagine what the scene might be like in the vicinity of the gates of heaven – or more precisely, the gates of judgment that may lead either to paradise or perdition.  This kind of imagining is a fool’s errand, of course, but, oh my, is it beautifully carried out by Saunders’s hand.  I won’t read it all to you, but I will tell you that he writes of“a tremendous set of diamond doors at the far end of the hall [that] flew open, revealing an even vaster hall.

Cloth of gold from the Easter vestments at Saint Mark's

“…  [and] within, a tent of purest white silk (although to describe it thus is to defame it – this was no earthly silk, but a higher, more perfect variety, of which our silk is a laughable imitation)… on a raised dais sat our host, a magnificent king, and next to the king’s place sat an empty chair (a grand chair, upholstered in gold, if gold were spun of light and each particle of that light exuded joy and the sound of joy), and that chair was intended [for the newest entrant].”[iv]  Oh, what a heavenly vision!

It has always seemed to me that some version of Purgatory is a hopeful doctrine, since I am not at all sure I will have worked out all the repentance in this life that I need to, and, as has been the case for me on almost every assignment I’ve ever had, I’d like a little extra time.  But the thing about “the Bardo,” that in-between state in which Saunders imagines Willie Lincoln and his cemetery neighbors, is that they cannot accept that they are dead.  This denial seems like an apt insight into a society like ours in which people seldom can bring themselves even to speak words like death, dead, dying, died, preferring instead to say in hushed tones that someone has “passed.”  Although I could be wrong, this vocabulary choice always sounds to me more like a euphemism that is trapped in denial than like a statement of faith.

In the book, the turning point of Willie Lincoln’s time in the Bardo comes when he is finally able to admit that he is dead, having overheard his father make that heart-breaking admission as well.  Only then, can he begin his journey to the diamond doors, and the vast hall, and the magnificent king who awaits him.

The women who went to the tomb that first Easter did not know, even when they found the tomb empty, exactly what it meant.  Even when Mary Magdalene encountered the risen Christ, and realized who he is – how could she possibly have know what it meant for him or for her?!?  But we celebrate today that first Easter morning when the Good News of the Resurrection began to dawn on believers, to whom God was revealing some new thing in the resurrection of his Son.

And having had more time to consider the implications of Christ’s rising, we can say that part of every acclamation that Christ is risen, is the belief that we shall rise as well; that Christ has staked out, lighted, and the led the way to what might be something like a tremendous set of diamond doors that open into a vast hall wherein waits for us a magnificent king, who is, himself, Jesus.  And that beside that king sits an empty chair: a grand chair upholstered with gold, if gold were spun of light and each particle of that light exuded joy and the sound of joy.  Although the details may be incorrect, the meaning of this description is what matters.  And the meaning is that such a golden chair was made for Willie Lincoln.  And one will be made for you, and one will be made for me.

152 years ago yesterday Abraham Lincoln died, having been shot the night before at Ford’s Theater in Washington.  When the casket carrying the president’s body was loaded onto the funeral train, it was joined by the much smaller casket of his son Willie, retrieved from Lot 292 in the cemetery in Georgetown to make the three-week journey to Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.  Just a bit more than three years had passed since Willie’s death.

Across Rittenhouse Square, at the Church of the Holy Trinity, eight days later, as the train bearing those two bodies stopped here in Philadelphia, the greatest living preacher of the time, Phillips Brooks, rector of our neighboring parish, delivered a sermon that eloquently eulogized the 16th president and deeply bewailed not only his death but also the awful sin of Slavery at whose feet Brooks laid responsibility for that death.  The sermon draws on the image from the Psalms which tell us that God “chose David… his servant and took him away from the sheepfolds.”[v]  But you can tell, reading the sermon, that Brooks was having a hard time accepting Lincoln’s death.  Perhaps it was a convention of the preaching of the time, or the urgency of the moment in the midst of civil war, but it is notable that almost all of the sermon deals with what the President had done in this life; there is no mention at all of the Resurrection, of the ministry of Jesus, or that some new hope lies ahead for the slain president, or for his little son.[vi]

It would be normal to say that Lincoln and his son were reunited in death, and brought together at last forever in their twin burial in Springfield.  It’s the kind of thing you say.  But it would also be wrong to say that, because we would be assuming that both Lincoln and his little son Willie were still in the Bardo, stuck in between this life and whatever comes next; it would be to imagine that their graves are their homes forever now, not even sick-boxes, just a place to decompose together quietly, as if this were a noble activity for a father and a son to undertake together in death.

But the real implication of our proclamation this morning is that somewhere in heaven there is a weaver weaving cloth that’s made of gold, if gold were spun of light and each particle of that light exuded joy and the sound of joy.  And that weaver is preparing the fabric for a seat, or a chair, or a sofa, or a chaise longue, or some such thing that has been placed beside a king: the only king who has known death and also conquered it.  And who has won this awesome victory not so that he could claim his throne, but so that Willie Lincoln and his dad could claim their thrones, and so that you and I can claim ours.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Easter Day 2017

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] Brady, Dennis, in The Washington Post, 7 October 2011, “Willie Lincoln’s death: A private agony for a president facing a nation of pain.”

[ii] Sheehan, Jason, on NPR.org, “Letting Go is the Hardest Thing for ‘Lincoln in the Bardo,’” 18 February 2017

[iii] Saunders, George, “Lincoln in the Bardo,” New York, Random House, 2017, p.  243

[iv] Ibid . p. 190

[v] Psalm 78:70

[vi] Brooks, Phillips, “The Life and Death of Abraham Lincoln”, 23 April 1865, published by Henry B. Ashmead, Philadelphia, 1865

Death and Taxes

In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to a friend in which he described the state of this new nation that he had helped to form just over a decade before. In the letter, he was particularly intent on reporting on how these new United States were faring under their very new Constitution. The upshot, according to Franklin, was so far, so good. The Constitution, he wrote, “has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes. It wasn’t the first time this expression had ever been written, but it was the first time it had been written by someone so famous, and so for all of the intervening years, this quotation has had Franklin’s name all over it. Nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.

It’s a rather cynical turn of phrase, don’t you think? Clever, but grim. We use it to try to make ourselves feel better by reminding ourselves that at least we’re all in the same boat, even if that boat is expensive and capsizing. We use it when we don’t get the job we were promised, when our team loses to an underdog, when we get our heart broken by the person we thought was the one. We say it with a sigh and resigned smile. Well, nothing is certain, right?, we shrug. Except DEATH – which is, admittedly, a dark thing to bring up when you’re already feeling pretty discouraged – and taxes – which is the part that’s supposed to make you laugh. Or laugh and wince. Or just wince. As I said, a rather cynical turn of phrase.

It’s a turn of phrase that I imagine has been uttered for a lot longer than two hundred and some odd years. I mean, really, how could this phrase not have been originally coined by some ancient Judean who was feeling a little salty about the Roman occupation? Can’t you just picture a particularly cantankerous native of Galilee, shrugging and shaking his head while talking to a neighbor who’s a bit down on his luck? So, my friend, that wonderful wine you were hoping to make, from the vineyard that you had prepared so carefully with the perfectly cleared ground and the grand shady trees and the brand-new watchtower – you say that instead of being wonderful the wine turned out to be as sour as vinegar? Well, you know what they say, the crusty Galilean would say, throwing a glance over his shoulder to the Roman soldier loitering behind him, nothing is certain except death and taxes.

For the women who arrived at the tomb in those grey grainy hours just before dawn, nothing was certain except death. Just a few days before, they had known, deep in their hearts, that the man they had followed was the Messiah. They had been absolutely sure of it. They wouldn’t have followed him if they hadn’t known that the words he spoke were the truth, that he was the one of whom prophets had spoken. He was the one they had been waiting for, since the Garden and the Red Sea, through the wilderness and the exile, in their hunger and their thirst, in their joy and in their pain. He was the one, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. They had been so certain.

But then they saw him arrested and tried. They watched him beaten and nailed to the cross. They heard his last words and his last breath; they witnessed his death. And in that moment, everything they had thought was solid and true simply crumbled away like the ground beneath their feet. Nothing was certain anymore. Nothing except death.

And perhaps taxes, too. I can imagine the women on their way to the tomb, clucking together over the irony that at least they wouldn’t have to worry about coming to harm in the early morning darkness. After all, the Romans had made sure to station a couple of guards at Jesus’ tomb for the duration of the Sabbath. So good to see their taxes put to such good use, Mary Magdalene would say, with an epic eye roll. Death and taxes, the other Mary would say. Death and taxes. Nothing is certain but death and taxes.

But then…well, you know the story. The earthquake and the rolling stone, the angel and the lightning, those resented Roman guards collapsing in fear and the unexpected voice telling them not to be afraid, and finally the sight they could never have imagined even in the most desperate dark hours of the past three days – their Lord, standing before them, alive, and well, and telling them to go tell the others to go into Galilee where they, too, would meet him. In the face of this astounding new truth, what else was there to do but fall down and worship? What else was there to do but to smile and laugh and shake their heads and hold on to his blessed wounded feet and know that once they had been in the darkness but now they had seen the light. Their Lord, who was dead, was now alive. Of this they were certain.

And on this night, we too proclaim this great good news. We were once in the darkness, but now we see the light. Christ, who was dead, is now alive. Nothing is certain but death and taxes? Bah, humbug! Here we are, on April 15, 2017, and it seems that death and taxes are both on hold! Oh death, where is your sting, oh taxes, where is your victory? Well, your taxes are actually due on Tuesday, but death – ? Death is conquered, we are free. Of course death still is, and death with a little “d” will come for each of us, but tonight we proclaim with certainty that this is no longer anything to fear. Death no longer has the last word. Because Death with a capital “d” is no more.

This is why, tonight, when we’re presented with a grim turn of phrase like Did you know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death, our response is simply Hallelujah! And when we hear that we have been united with him in a death like his we say Hallelujah! And when we hear that we – and Phoebe and Joshua – have been buried with him by baptism into death, we say Hallelujah! Because this night confirms for us that these turns of phrase are not grim at all. There is no room for grimness or hopelessness or cynicism after this night. For we no longer have anything to fear, not even death. When we are baptized with Christ into a death like his, we will also walk with him in his resurrection. We know this. We proclaim it. We celebrate it. The life Christ lives is for all of us, and Death has no more dominion. Nothing is certain except Death is dead.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Because there is something else that is absolutely certain. And I don’t mean your taxes. Yes, we do have to render unto Caesar on Tuesday, but I’m talking about something else, something much more. There is one other certainty in what we proclaim this night. And that certainty is love. What is most certain, what we know is most true, deep in our hearts, is that all of this was done for love. This death was for love. This resurrection was for love. This appearance to these wonderful women, this instruction to go into Galilee, this promise that he would appear again, was for love. The holiness of this fire, this water, this baptism, these new Christians – all for love. All was and is and will forever be for love. Hallelujah.

So, you holy people on this holy night, do not fear. This night truly “has an appearance that promises permanency,” the permanency of eternal life in the glory of God the Father. And on this night, this can be said to be certain: death is no more, Christ is risen, and all, for certain, for love.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

The Great Vigil of Easter, 15 April 2017

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Death in the Afternoon

Las Ventas in Madrid.

In November of 1567 Pope Pius V issued a papal bull that forbade Catholic Christians from sponsoring, or watching, or participating in bullfights, on pain of excommunication, and denying the privilege of Christian burial to any person killed in a bullfight.[i]

Writing centuries later, Ernest Hemingway acknowledged that “from a modern moral point of view, that is a Christian point of view, the whole bullfight is indefensible.”[ii]  But this admission did not prevent Hemingway from launching an extended defense of the sport, which he insisted is actually more art than sport, and “the only art in which the artist is in danger of death.”[iii]  Nor did the papal edict prevent bullfighting from continuing to be enjoyed by peasants and nobles alike all across Spain, that most Catholic of nations, even to this very day; subsequent popes having weakened the force of Pius V’s ruling, anyway.

Hemingway felt that the bullfights offered a unique opportunity, as “the only place where you could go to see life and death, i.e. violent death now that the wars were over.”[iv]  As a writer, Hemingway believed he had to encounter life and death, even violent death, in order to write meaningfully about them.  Who am I to argue with him?

I happened to find myself in Madrid nearly a year ago during the Feria de San Isidro, in the month of May, when on nearly every night of the month a bullfight takes place at the bullring, Las Ventas, in Madrid.  And because matters of life and death are of interest to me, too, I went one night to the corrida, to see the bullfights, since I am not beholden to papal authority.  There are many fascinating details to report about the bullfights, most of which I must leave aside today.  Today I have interest only marginally in the toreros, the bullfighters, and more especially in the toros, the bulls.

Hemingway will tell you that “the bravery of the bull is the primal root of the whole Spanish bullfight.  The bravery of a truly brave bull is something unearthly and unbelievable.”[v]  But truthfully, Hemingway is more interested in bullfighters than in bulls, and more enthralled by the men than the animals when it comes to matters of life and death.  For it is in the person of the bullfighter that that great American writer found the crux of life and death.  The bullfighter, he wrote, “is performing a work of art and he is playing with death, bringing it closer, closer, closer, to himself, a death that you know is in the horns [of the bull…. The bullfighter] gives a feeling of his immortality, and, as you watch it, it becomes yours.  Then when it belongs to both of you, he proves it with the sword.”[vi]

Of course, on Good Friday, my interest is of life and death and immortality.  It is my job today to write about these things – even about violent death – and to speak to you about them.  And I am, of course, interested when a writer as famous as Hemingway, so renowned an observer of the world and of life and of death, turns his eye and his pen to the matter of immortality.  Maybe he has something to show us, in shedding light on the gifts of the bullfighter, about the ministry of that one Man whose death unlocked the door to true immortality.

Hemingway went to hundreds, maybe thousands of bullfights; I have been to one, but I believe I may have seen enough.  There in the center of the sandy ring is the bull: strong, and brave, and noble in his power and his beauty.  It is important to remember that the bull has done nothing wrong; indeed, he has been sent here for this, has been bred and raised for this one purpose, to be killed by a matador in a ring.  The bull has been conditioned to fight by having been limited in his exposure to humans throughout his lifetime.  He is meant to be aware of the threat in the ring as soon as he arrives there.

First, the picadors confront him on horseback, piercing him with their lances, drawing the first blood from the bull, and weakening him.  Next, come the banderilleros, who jab their barbed banderillas into his flesh.  There is more blood now, and a weaker bull, too.

This doesn’t take long.  Now the bull is bleeding; you can see his neck and back and sides stained red.  His powerful neck has been weakened, and his head is carried lower now.  The Spanish call this state “aplomado.”  “When he is aplomado,” Hemingway writes, “he has been made heavy, he is like lead; he has usually lost his wind… he no longer carries his head high… he has obviously been beaten… but he is still supremely dangerous.”[vii]  And then the matador – the word literally means “the one who kills” – goes to it with his sword, and kills the bull.

Blood my come from the bull’s mouth if the killing is not clean.  He will fall to his front knees for a moment, and then, faster than seems possible, and with an almost comic stiffness, the bull will keel over onto his side, dead as can be.  One of the matador’s assistants will jab a blade into the animal’s brainstem to make sure.  An ear may be cut off, as a prize for the bullfighter – or two ears if the performance is deemed especially good.  Then a team of mules will drag the carcass of the bull out of the ring to be butchered, its meat put to good use.

If there is anything in a bullfight that comes close to connecting the observer to immortality, Hemingway is quite wrong that it could be the bullfighter, at least by any Christian reckoning.  Because every bullfight already includes a figure who is easily identified with sacrifice: and that is the bull, who has done nothing wrong, but who will be antagonized, bloodied, and inevitably killed to satisfy some bloodlust of ours that lies deep in the human psyche or soul, I guess.

On almost any given night in May, six bulls will fulfill this bloodthirst in Las Ventas in Madrid.  But today, on Good Friday, there is only one sacrifice that matters, there is only one bloodied body that has been made aplomado, heavy, like lead.  He has lost his wind, he no longer carries his head high; he has obviously been beaten.  But he is still supremely dangerous (per se), because his power is made perfect in weakness – and this is Jesus.  Sitting there at the bullring in Madrid, watching the blood pour down the innocent animal’s side, it seemed so obvious.  Jesus is the bull, and the bull is Jesus: born for and sent to us for this one purpose.  He has done nothing wrong; but here he hangs bleeding.

Hemingway may have the contours of the narrative right, but it’s the characters he has mixed up.  For us, it is Jesus who is performing a work of art, playing with death, bringing it closer, closer, closer, to himself, a death that you know is in the thorns and in the nails, and in the torturous suffocation that comes of hanging on the Cross itself.  It is real and actual death, and it comes to Jesus just as surely as it does to the bull, a final jab in his side to make sure the job is finished.

Nearly all of human history is a chronicle of the power of conquest through the shedding of blood.  And it has been the hope of many men that the most successful matador (the one who kills) will become, somehow, invincible.  But the truth is found in only this one chapter of history, on a sandy ring of ground beneath a Cross, where the One who is killed becomes the unmistakable victor, as the sun darkens and the earth quakes.  And Christ passes through death on the way to immortality, to everlasting life, because he knows that we must do so too.  There is no path from this life to the next that does not lead through death.  And Jesus came to lead the way, which is more about love than about bravery, more about service than about power, more about humility than about greatness.

Mistaken though Hemingway may be about the parallels between a bullfight and the story of Christian salvation, he has nevertheless provided language that helps us beautifully to encapsulate the drama and the meaning of Good Friday.  But in our case, it applies not to the one who kills, but to the One who is killed:

Jesus is, in fact, “bringing [death] closer, closer, closer to himself, a death that you know is in the [Cross….  And here, on the Cross, Jesus] gives [you] a feeling of his immortality, and, as you watch it, it becomes yours.  Then when it belongs to both of you, he proves it.”

Watching from afar, you see this thing unfold, as death draws closer, closer, closer.  But do you also feel the immortality that is being poured out with the blood that drips on the sandy ground?  Has it become yours?  Can you see his saving death, and the immortality it points to, and believe, and know that it belongs to both of you – to him and to you? 

Yes, immortality belongs to him and to you and to me.  And now that you have seen him die, are you ready for him to prove it, and to rise?

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Good Friday, 2017

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] “Super prohibitione agitationis Taurorum & Ferarum” (“An injunction forbidding bullfights and similar sports with wild animals”), commonly referred to as “De Salute Gregis Dominici,” 1 November, 1567

[ii] Hemingway, Ernest, “Death in the Afternoon,” New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932, p. 1

[iii] Ibid. p. 91

[iv] Ibid. p. 2

[v] Ibid, p. 113

[vi] Ibid. p. 213

[vii] Ibid. p. 147