If you go in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on the outskirts of the old town, down the road from the college and the church, you might find yourself visiting Gottes Aker - God’s Acre - the old Moravian cemetery.   Gottes Aker is laid out in the hills, encompassed by a low wall pierced by seven gates, each gate featuring a quaintly painted arch with a quotation from the book of Revelation, the book about last things.  People are buried there in choirs—men with men, women with women, children with children.  The oldest tombstones lie flat against the ground, and are of one size and color—they seem to float just above the level of the grass, as the eye follows the gentle swayback of the hill.  Here in the oldest part of the cemetery, no distinction is made between whites and blacks, in keeping with the practice of the earliest settlers—at least for a short time of grace, all races were buried together.  It is not a morbid place, but it is quiet, with an expectant quiet, as if the hundreds of souls were waiting patiently, just below the level of the grass, and were ready at the sound of the trump to scramble out their tombs, young and old, black and white, men and women together, still singing in choirs, just as Matthew had predicted.

You can get a foretaste of that heavenly day, if your timing is right.  If you should find yourself in Old Salem early on an Easter Sunday morning, you would hear the sound of trumpets breaking the stillness, and voices singing in choir.  It will feel a little like resurrection has jumped the gun, the way it felt in Matthew’s gospel.  It’s an old Moravian  custom at Easter in old Salem for the congregation of the living to assemble there among the dead, voices tuned and instruments in hand.  I am told that the congregation moves in solemn procession from the church down the road through the gates of Gottes Aker, and that people then array themselves along the encircling wall, facing the graves.  At the sight of the rising sun the quiet tombstones will echo back the sound of Easter voices and Easter instruments, the voices of the living penetrating the tombs of the dead.  For just an hour or two, Golgotha becomes a garden again, memory is restored and redeemed, and the hills will echo with a love song of resurrection hope.  May their song be yours this Easter season, and God’s be the praise:

Here might I stay and sing, no story so divine,
Never was love, dear King, never was grief like mine.
This is my friend, in whose sweet praise,
I all my days could gladly spend.