Starting from Zero

by Stephanie Peirolo, CSJP-A

My granddaughter, who is almost two years old, recently discovered the concept of emptiness. She peers into the laundry bin and looks up at me and correctly pronounces it “empty.” She knows that nothing has a name.

Zero, the numerical nothing, is critical to mathematics. One of the things zero does is hold the emptiness. And that space is necessary to all the ways we use math.

What is the value of nothing? How can emptiness hold space?

Recently, I read a book by Barbara Fiand, SNDdeN called Prayer and the Quest for Healing. In it she talks about the role of the empty tomb in the Easter story in Mark. When the women come to the tomb, they find a young man clothed in white sitting inside. He tells them that Jesus is not there. “He is going ahead of you to Galilee,” the messenger says.

The women cannot comprehend the significance of the absence and they are anxious and afraid. Loss is like that. They have just witnessed the brutal death of Jesus, they are mourning. All they can see is what is not there; the body of their teacher and friend that they have come to anoint with spices.

But Fiand invites us to consider the emptiness of the tomb as a way to hold space that is critical to our spirituality. I think of it as a kind of theological zero.

“The significance of the empty tomb is that it calls all of us who proclaim its hope to become transformers of space – the space, namely, of oppression and of the abuse of power.” (159)

Zero changes magnitude. It makes $100 into $100,000. It is a multiplier, amplifier and still a mystery. How does the resurrection change the magnitude of loss?

As I write this, half a million Americans have died of COVID-19. The rates of illness and death are disproportionately higher among black, indigenous and people of color. People in prison, jails and immigrant detention centers, or those who are unhoused or live in crowded conditions are especially at risk. Inequities in access to health care compound the problem. While there are vaccines, whites are being vaccinated at a much higher proportional rate than people of color, at least where I live in Washington State.

I know about grief. My son died when he was 19. I know what the death of my son did to my daughter, myself, our family and friends, how the loss of one young man resonated in our community. Multiply that by half a million people dead in this country alone. I understand that moment of discovery at the empty tomb is part of our necessary grieving process, the shock, confusion, denial. The emptiness is real, and frightening.

But it’s not the end of the story.

I’m drawn to the messenger, the young man in the white robe who some refer to as an angel. He tells the women what they need to know; Jesus has risen. “He is going ahead of you to Galilee, that is where you will see him, just as he told you.” The death, brutality, anguish and grief are real. They are just not the end of the story.

Jesus is on the road to Galilee. Anyone who follows him will have to walk out into a community in turmoil. It will be dangerous.

Fiand continues: “Liberating the oppressed, setting free those who are downtrodden, standing with them against oppressive systems, and radically challenging our own conduct, our institutions and policies on behalf of justice – that is what walking the road to Galilee is all about.” (161)

The empty tomb holds the space. It is open, anyone entering can see it is empty. It is human nature to stand, stunned, at the threshold, spices spilling from our hands. But the messenger is right, we are not at the end of the story. The zero of the empty tomb changes the magnitude of loss in a calculus of justice that is multiplication, mystery and the central fact of our religion.

My granddaughter is afraid to climb the stairs in my house. I stand with her and tell her “I’ve got you,” and she climbs up cautiously. She doesn’t understand pronouns so every couple of steps she turns to me and says, “I got you.”

She’s a messenger. I’m trying to look for the messengers, the echo of the Divine, the ones that say this is hard. But what you’re looking for is on this other road. Jesus is just ahead, turning and saying, “I got you.” Let’s go together.

This article appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of Living Peace.