The Fourteenth Station: Jesus is laid to rest in the tomb

There are times when we crave oblivion.
When to buckle and fall into numbness,
incapable of any sensibility,
is more attractive than any hope of heaven.
Only a lingering recognition
that to do so would be ignoble
stays our hand from self-slaughter.
We are not so bleached by living
as to wish to stain others with the blood of our suicide.
But the dream of fatal accident,
a swift snuffing of life, remains alluring.
We do not even care for our day to end
draped in sunset’s gorgeous pall;
we long for fog as thick as blindness.

And in that fog we find him,
entombed before us.
Already shrouded, sealed, so beautifully still
we weep with desperate desire
for the same dead end
until
something stirs.

Yes.
Even in this lowest state
he finds the grace
to force us to the naked truth:
God-with-us.

Even in oblivion,
there is Emmanuel.
And
all
shall
be well.

Stations of the Cross