The Dead Sea is a fascinating place to visit. You don’t see any fish or creatures of any kind. The mineral content of about 30 percent makes life impossible. Nothing. Dead.

You won’t drown

Recently I visited another kind of Dead Sea. This visit was frightening. I was in the Intensive Care Unit as a family member was dying. The lines on the monitors flattened. There was no joyful talk of the future. Our lives were suddenly empty. Nothing. Dead.

The walk out to the tomb on Easter morning must have been that way too. On Good Friday Jesus surrendered all the life from his body. With his death, there was no life in the hearts of his followers. No joy. No talk of the future. Empty lives. Nothing. Dead.

But there is something amazing about the Dead Sea. You can’t drown there. Wade out as deep as you can. Just beyond waist-deep, your body begins to bob up and down like a cork.

So too, the walk out to the tomb on Easter morning didn’t end with the women sinking down in despair. Death was present. The tomb. The stone. The grave clothes. Wade in as deep as you want into this place of death. But you can’t drown. Not here. For the grave clothes were empty. The stone was rolled away. Death was defeated. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” the angels asked.

In fact, it is that walk into the empty tomb that kept our family from drowning in the ICU. For our loved one, hope for this life was gone. But the farther we walked into the depths of her death, the more our eyes focused on the life beyond this life. We heard that she has come out of the great tribulation. God has wiped away every tear from her eyes (Revelation 7:14,17).

You will be buoyed up

Let me share one more thing about the Dead Sea. I didn’t see any boats on the Dead Sea. But it was not always that way. On a sixth-century map called the Madaba Mosaic, two boats are pictured sailing across the Dead Sea. The ancients understood that it is possible to carry far heavier cargo on the Dead Sea than anywhere else!

That’s true of the Dead Sea of the Easter tomb as well. It causes everything to be more buoyant. It helps us carry every kind of load. Marital discord. Job loss. Difficult financial decisions at congregational and synodical levels. National economic woes. Loved ones serving in war zones. The burdens of life are too heavy to bear alone.