I learned a new word this week. I was doing some research about a monument and found out during my reading that the marker used to have a tomb under it, but the remains of the deceased were moved to another location. This means that the “tomb” was now an “empty tomb” – it was now a cenotaph! From what I found out, a cenotaph is an empty tomb that marks the place of a significant event but there is no deceased body present.
I confess that this whole idea was of interest to me. Our youngest brother, Ken, passed away on February 29, 2020 and my other brother, Doug, and I decided to have his remains cremated. Our family has eight graves in Ridgwood Memorial Park in northwest suburban Chicago. That’s where Mom and Dad are buried so we thought it would be nice to place Ken in the family plots there. However, after some discussion and thought, we decided that rather than bury Ken’s remains, he would rather have had his ashes spread over the tombs of our parents. So that is exactly what we did when Doug and I visited the cemetery together.
We had purchased a headstone to match the others who are already interred there, so we did create a memorial, but it just seemed more appropriate to spread Ken’s remains across the other graves. So… unbeknownst to me at the time, Ken’s monument now represents a cenotaph – a place to mark Ken’s place in the family, a place of remembrance, but no remains are interred there.
So all cenotaphs are markers or monuments or “empty tombs” but all markers and monuments aren’t cenotaphs. In all honesty, I can’t believe that I am in my seventies and have never heard this before.
This came up one other time in our family more than 75 years ago. When my grandfather’s younger sister died in 1900 as a small baby, the family couldn’t afford a regular grave. So she was buried in a pauper’s grave at Oakwoods Cemetary in the south side of Chicago. Four years later, my great grandmother died and she was also buried in an unmarked grave – close, but not next to, her daughter. Years later, when Grandpa was married and more established, he considered moving his mother and baby sister into a larger, more appropriate area where other family members had been buried.
Unfortunately, the Oakwoods staff advised that due to the way our ancestors were initially buried, there would be nothing to move. Well, maybe a few bones but no guarantees. Vaults weren’t used and wooden caskets disintegrated. Grandpa decided to buy headstones – that had never been done – and leave things stay the way they were. I know he was sad, but it was probably best. At least the locations were identified.
All those family plots, including those at Oakwoods and also the ones at Ridgewood, now fall to me to manage. I was raised to make sure that, as the oldest child, our family plots were taken care of in a respectful way. Someday, they will be passed on to the next generation to manage.
By now, some of you are probably wondering how all this ties into the Scripture. But it does… Because after the crucifixion of Jesus, He was laid to rest in a tomb that was provided by Joseph of Arimathea. However, on what we celebrate as Easter morning, the tomb was empty… Jesus could not be contained in death. He is Risen! Or, said another way, the “empty tomb” became a cenotaph! In fairness, there are two places that are memorials to the death of Jesus. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Garden Tomb, depending on your belief system, are both recognized as places where Jesus was entombed. However, Christians know that we serve a living God, not a dead one. So no tomb could contain the remains of Jesus. Both of those sites represent memorials to our Lord and Savior – and they are both considered cenotaphs.
Our verse for tonight is from the Gospel of Mark. The empty tomb has been entered and we are told, in Mark 16:6-7, “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
My encouragement this evening is that Jesus is clearly alive. He could not be contained in death. In fact, He has overcome death with eternal life. His grave became a cenotaph! My prayer is that we will all celebrate the Risen Christ and rejoice that the tomb was, indeed, empty. Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…