麻豆社

Good morning,

Who can forget the image of Alexei Navalny鈥檚 mother this week? Lyudmila cut a solitary and lonely figure against the backdrop of the snowy white of the Arctic 鈥� staring down the lens of the camera outside the penal colony in which he died, demanding the release of Alexei鈥檚 body.

That a mother should be separated from her dead son鈥檚 body, seems clearly unjust. For me it called to mind the wrongness of seeing loved ones separated from their family members who died during the Covid-19 pandemic, the restrictions on meeting meaning that many couldn鈥檛 attend funerals to say goodbye.

Ms Navalny鈥檚 revelation that she didn鈥檛 even know where her son鈥檚 body was reminded me of the passage in the Bible that will be read in churches across the country at Easter in a few weeks鈥� time. Mary Magdalene, distraught after Jesus鈥檚 death, experiences further anguish when she arrives at his tomb and finds his body gone. 鈥淭hey have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him,鈥� she cries.

The Bible speaks of Mary and other women followers of Jesus arriving to take care of their teacher鈥檚 body, to anoint it with expensive oils and spices. A poignant act following a tragic and painful passing.

There鈥檚 a misconception that Christianity is concerned only with the spiritual, with the soul and the non-material. But my faith teaches me that the body 鈥� in life and in death 鈥� matters.

Walk through any churchyard today and you鈥檒l be walking among the bodies of those who have gone before. Their gravestones as memento mori, reminders of our mortality. Death, in the Christian tradition, is not hidden away.

In fact, pagans thought ancient Christian burial practices were extreme, accusing them of belonging to a death cult because of their eagerness to stare death in the face. While Roman authorities would have the dead buried far away from the city to avoid contamination, Christians 鈥� strange as they were - would pray in tombs, sing and worship God over dead bodies.

This week, Navalny鈥檚 wife Yulia also appealed for his body to be returned so that it could be treated with 鈥渄ignity鈥�, just like Jesus鈥檚 followers wanted to take care of their loved one鈥檚 body.

Perhaps this loving care is the ultimate redemptive act 鈥� to find hope even amid the tragedy and horror of death. Perhaps this act reflects the story at the heart of the Christian faith in which Alexei Navalny believed. That God is not distant, dwelling only in the ethereal, but that God steps into the corporeal. In Jesus, God has a body. And because of that, the heartbreak of loss and the reality of mortality are not where the story ends.

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