The Defiance of Making the Bed — The Joke is on Death

The article is satirical and fake. It is a part of our annual Rectrum April Fools’ edition.

In the Spring of 2014, United States Navy Admiral William H. McRaven spoke to the graduates of the University of Texas. “If you want to change the world,” he said, “start by making your bed.” Reflecting on his training as a Navy SEAL, he noted that every morning his instructors would examine the barracks, making sure each soldier had made his bed. Had he pulled the sheet tightly, squared the pillow and neatly folded the extra blanket at the end of the rack. There was wisdom in this discipline, McRaven observed. When a sailor made his bed, it was a sign he was ready and awake for anything the enemy threw at him.

This simple habit was the first domino in a chain of a sailor’s routine of excellence. “If you want to change the world, start by making your bed.” When Jesus rose from the dead, he began the Day of Resurrection by making his bed. St. John tells us that inside the tomb, the apostle found the linen cloths lying there and the face cloth neatly folded, set aside by itself (John 20:6–7). Take the puzzlement of the clothes together with the stone — which had been rolled away — and you get a convincing case for the resurrection. If thieves had taken the body, they would not have taken the time to unwrap the clothes from it, much less fold them.

Now, I’m not saying that we should go venerate relics like the Shroud of Turin or the Face Cloth of Oviedo in Spain; quite the opposite. We should follow the lead of St. John himself, whom the Gospel says saw the stone and the clothes and believed (John 20:8). He finally understood the Scriptures: that Jesus must rise from the dead. And the first thing Jesus did as a sign of his resurrection was make his bed. He neatly folded those burial cloths because they would not be needed anymore. For when Jesus rose on the third day, everything changed. Christ, being raised from the dead, would never die again. Death no longer had power over him (Romans 6:9).

And sleep, too, for that matter; after Christ was raised, he would not need to sleep like he did on the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 8:24). Nor was he like Lazarus or Jairus’s daughter, who, after being raised, would one day die again. He was not like Peter, James or John, who fell asleep due to sorrow (Luke 22:46). For Jesus, Easter was the ultimate resurrection. Jesus would never return to bed. He was forever awake. So he made his bed, folded the burial cloths, and stepped out of the tomb. And he left those linen clothes behind, for he was wearing the garments of the resurrection: a robe of righteousness and light. He walked out into the world to proclaim his victory.

But Mary Magdalene did not yet believe. She stood weeping outside the tomb. “They have taken my Lord,” she said. “I don’t know where they have laid him” (John 20:13). She doubted and did not comprehend, understandably so. She had seen Jesus mutilated and crucified. And, dead men do not just rise up from the tomb, do they? They do not unless they are the Messiah, the Son of God, the Redeemer. And so Jesus’ first Easter appearance was to Mary. “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” (John 20:15). It was as if he said, “Mary. Mary. It’s me, Jesus.” And immediately Mary was filled with the joy of the Resurrection, the joy of life. But Jesus would not let her hold on to him or even touch him, because he was on the move. He had work to do. He was proclaiming a decisive victory.

“If you want to change the world, start by making your bed.” Jesus would change the world. He would not stop until he had reached all the elect, the saints. He appeared to Peter, the Twelve, Thomas, more than five hundred brothers, James and St. Paul. He went to Jerusalem, Emmaus, Bethany, Galilee and to the very ends of the earth (1 Corinthians 15:3–10). Jesus went about changing the world, delivering men and women from the darkness of sin, from fear, from sorrow and from death itself. Since that first Easter until today, Jesus has been keeping vigil, standing and praying before the Father for his people, for you. You see, Jesus is on a victory march from the empty tomb into the world — from the empty tomb to you — to make you his and to make your bed. So that for you, the grave is no longer a prison house of death, but a gate to life immortal. For whoever lives and believes in the risen Lord shall never die (John 11:26).

I’ve been asked to make this article satirical in honor of April Fools’ Day. While the historical and spiritual observations made so far have been factual, I invite the reader to note the profound joke of Easter: the devil is made the fool. Death is rendered powerless. The currencies of guilt, shame, fear, depression and sloth — while we do continue to experience these — are rendered penultimate. As Paul Gerhardt, the Lutheran poet of the soul, observed: “The foe in triumph shouted when Christ lay in the tomb; but lo, he now is routed, his boast is turned to gloom. For Christ again is free; in glorious victory, he who is strong to save has triumphed over the grave” (from the hymn “Awake, My Heart, with Gladness”).

Dear friend, Jesus has made your bed. He invites you to Easter life, to see death itself as a joke. Again, Gerhardt writes, “The world against me rages, its fury I disdain; though bitter war it wages, its work is all in vain. My heart from care is free, no trouble troubles me. Misfortune now is play, and night is bright as day.” Or, to paraphrase Sam Gamgee and Gandalf from The Return of the King communicate, “everything sad is going to come untrue.”