Summary: Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Have any of you ever been in a tunnel? Last year, I was trekking through several tunnels. I was with a group of fifteen hearty souls on a spiritual pilgrimage to Israel and Jerusalem. A special feature of that pilgrimage was tunnels. We walked in a lot of tunnels, tunnels that had served as water supplies, escape routes, and attack routes -- but also tunnels that were modern archeological digs. We walked through walls of sheer rock, and along long stretches of limestone, deep in the underground of Jerusalem, below bedrock in some places. We walked through some tunnels that had been hewn out by hand tools of the Canaanites. Other tunnels were constructed by Hezekiah and various Hebrew kings. Still others were the result of modern archaeology, present explorations into our past. Our footing was precarious and uncertain. We stumbled along rocky ridges and unexpected slopes. Often the rock beneath our feet was wet, always slippery, and sometimes full of water puddles. Underground, we rarely knew exactly where we were. We could not hear the world above us, and our tunnels made unexpected turns and dives. I am telling you all this, I am describing those rocky tunnels to you on Easter morning, because being in those tunnels felt like being in a rocky tomb. Walking deep in those Jerusalem tunnels felt like I was walking in a tomb. The walls were tight and dark, and I had no idea where I was.
