The Lovely Bones (Easter Sunrise, 2006)

Scripture: Mark 16.1-8


Alice Sebold’s beautiful novel The Lovely Bones begins with the main character, fourteen year-old Susie Salmon, telling us that she has been murdered by a man in her neighborhood. The man abuses her, kills her, and scatters her bones so that her body will never be found. After this startling beginning, the story focuses on what happens to Susie’s family and community in the immediate aftermath and then, what happens to the family when life begins to move on. The whole story is told from Susie’s point of view from heaven, or should I say, her heaven. More on that in a minute.

One would think that after so shocking a beginning, the story would lose focus and interest, but not The Lovely Bones. We are caught up in Susie’s passions: that her family and community would discover who her killer was; and that she might never be forgotten and/or, never be lonely; that her bones might be found. Her wrestling with these things somehow shapes the quality of her family’s life after her leaving, and it shapes her afterlife in her heaven. Susie is saddened as she watches her parents’ marriage disintegrate, her family members wander separate paths, and her community move on without her. Her bones remain hidden and scattered. For a long time, there is no resolution. Certainly, the way Susie’s life ends is a disappointment. She watches her younger sister grow up to an age that she herself never experienced, and she wonders what might have been. Time moves on without her. And heaven doesn’t explain. God never so much as makes a cameo appearance.

Life is at one time or another, disappointing for everyone. Maybe we don’t get the grades that are expected in school. Maybe we’re not a star on the team. Maybe she says no to a date. People we count on suddenly leave.

Jennifer, the boys, and I had a family portrait taken this past year. It’s in black and white, and if I do say so, we look pretty good. I was looking at the picture the other day, because I like it, and it occurred to me that I am at the age my father was when I have the most vivid memories of him as a kid. He was around forty when I was playing Little League ball and when we went trout fishing together in the Spring in the late seventies. I look at me in that family portrait and I can see my dad. I used to tell my boys stories about my dad and my grandpa, about fishing and picking berries and Little League games.

“They’ve been dead a long time,” Seth once said.

“Sometimes it seems that way,” I say. “I miss those guys. We’ll see them again.”

I say this because I have hope. I have hope as only a believer can hope. I have Easter morning hope. Easter is the day when we go first to a cemetery. We go very early – the cool damp of dawn is giving way to the warmth of a rising sun. Birds are singing. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of laughter. The women have brought spices to anoint the body for burial. Their only concern is whether they will be able to get into the tomb. They are relieved to see the stone is rolled away, and they enter. Instead of a place dark and cold, they find the inside to be curiously light and warm, like there is a glow emanating from . . .somewhere – maybe the table in the center itself. And then they see him. There is a man, a young man, sitting there beside the stone table. And the young man is smiling.

I love that part, not just a man sitting in the middle of a tomb, but a young man, sitting on the right side. One name for Jesus is “Ancient of Days.” The title doesn’t mean that Jesus is old like we think old – past his prime, decrepit, falling apart, on the way out. It means rather, that he has simply always been around. “Before Abraham was,” Jesus once told some folks, “I am.” Jesus is eternal. Timeless. Forever Young. Maybe, in Jesus, God wants us to know that Time is not as big of a deal as we think it is.

A young man once asked God how long a million years was to Him. God replied, “A million years to me is just like a single second in your time.”

Then the young man asked God what a million dollars was to Him. God replied, “A million dollars to me is just like a single penny to you.”

Then the young man got his courage up and asked, “God, could I have one of your pennies?”

God smiled and replied, “Certainly, just a second.”


It’s ironic that it took a twentieth-century scientist, Albert Einstein, and his theory of relativity to get modern people to consider the notion that time is not as fixed and linear as we assumed it to be. There is a story about Einstein taking a train to Princeton. The train conductor came down the aisle asking for tickets. When he got to Einstein, the famous physicist couldn’t find his ticket anywhere. The conductor said, “Dr. Einstein, I know who you are. We all know who you are. I’m sure you bought a ticket. Don’t worry about it.” Einstein nodded gratefully. The conductor continued down the aisle taking tickets, and as he was ready to go to the next car he saw the great Einstein down on his hands and knees looking under his seat for his ticket. The conductor rushed over and said, “Dr. Einstein, don’t worry, I know who you are. You don’t need a ticket.”

Einstein replied, “Young man, I too know who I am. What I don’t know is where I am going.”

I know who I am. And with the hope that I have through Jesus Christ, I know where it is I am going. I know that because of Jesus and his resurrection, I too will be resurrected to life in Paradise. The young man is smiling at me and at you because he knows that these bones, these lovely bones, are meant for more. Jesus has this phrase, “I will show you things that have been hidden since the world’s first morning.” Heaven will be the first morning of our new lives. Reunion, delight, peace will be ours. Heaven will not be some long and lonely reminiscing. Heaven will be people. We will see our loved ones waiting there for us. We will see that Time and Sin and Death are not greater than the One who made us to be together. And of course, Heaven is that One Person. We will see Him. We’ll see that Young Man, Ancient of Days, Alpha and Omega, First and Last, King of kings. And then finally, we will know that we have arrived home.

If you don’t know who you are; and if you don’t know where you are going, there is hope for you today. Jesus has gone on ahead to prepare the way for you. But you must follow. It’s better not to wait. Somewhere, there is, even now, a young man smiling at you.