A Lesson from Dr. Manor’s Traveling Archeology Show
My father wasn’t given to melodrama, but he thought deeply about great truths and didn’t hesitate to share with me after he’d ruminated on them for a while. We talked about a lot of things one might not think to discuss with a child. One night he remarked, “Some day, if the world goes on, I’ll no longer be here, and if the world goes on even longer, there’ll come a time when no one remembers that I ever was.” That particular moment is frozen in my memory—perhaps because, to a child, any thought of a parent’s death is startling, and perhaps because Dad said it so matter-of-factly. He was examining the inevitability of his own end and his relative place in the larger arc of history in a way that could send a certain sort of person headlong into existential despair.
For six weeks some years back, my church was the recipient of “Biblical Archeology Wednesday” lessons from the intrepid Dr. Dale Manor. He arrived each week wearing a memorable tie, with a laptop and slides and a foam-lined stainless steel case. In it, he transported artifacts, which he displayed with little labels on a piece of fabric on the communion table. It was a dog and pony show he’d done many times before. The cliché of the trade was true: one man’s trash truly becomes another's treasure, if it’s been buried for a millennium or two. In a way, looking at humanity’s discards from long ago compels us to put our own lives into perspective.
For thousands of years, people have contemplated their own demise, as Dad did that night. The presentation by Dr. Manor explored how people of the ancient world viewed the idea of an afterlife. He surveyed Canaanites, the Mesopotamians, and Egyptians, all of whom clearly believed that they would live somewhere after death. The evidence? Burial artifacts and cultural documentation, such as the Egyptian scroll depicting the scene of final judgment: the “weighing of the heart” ceremony. The Egyptians believed that there was a correlation between our worthiness and our eternal destiny, the end of which would be revealed in a ceremony where the heart was weighed against a feather on a scale of justice to reveal one’s fate in the afterlife. An impossible standard. Not many would pass the test, I’m thinking. Perhaps none.
We looked at some signals the Hebrews had given us in scripture; there were signs that they, too, believed that somehow they would go to rest “with their fathers” after death. King David took comfort in the belief that he would see his dead child again. Various figures in the Old Testament are described as being “gathered to their people” after death. Job said, “After my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.” Christ reminded the Sadducees that God claimed to be “the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,” and that he was clearly not the God of the dead, but of the living. Of course, the New Testament is filled with resurrection talk and promises of an afterlife.
The most fascinating tidbit was an artifact found in a Jerusalem escarpment burial cave called Ketef Hinnom, significant for dating the writing of the Old Testament and confirming the reliability of existing manuscripts. In the burial trappings of a Hebrew family was found a silver amulet, and inside was a thin, rolled sheet of silver on which was engraved the “Priestly Benediction,” Numbers 6:24-26:
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn His face toward you and give you peace.
Although we have sung it as a benediction all our lives, we were encouraged by Dr. Manor to consider the scripture in this context not so much as a parting blessing, but as a processional for loved ones who stand on the doorstep of the next life, waiting to see the Lord’s face and confident that they will be graciously received.
If we each relied on the weight of our hearts to balance some supposed scale at that time, we would surely be without hope. But through the Lord’s provision in the perfect sacrifice of Christ, Christians have faith that we will be seen as “holy and blameless” by the loving Father who greets us there.
The night my mother died, I knelt beside my father as he prayed, “Lord, you know her. She’s been one of yours for many years. She’s struggling, Lord. Now meet her at the river, wrap your arms around her, and take her home.”
Bless her. Keep her. Give her peace.
Yes, someday you and I will die, and no one here may long remember that we lived. But there is something better waiting through that door.
-Patti Summers