King Schaw's Grave

King Schaw's Grave is a rather disappointing cist tomb located on a high hill overlooking the Esk Valley in southern Scotland. It has a rather grand title, but there is no record of a Pictish chieftain who went by that name, though the individual whose remains once laid here must have been of some importance. An account from 1828 states that it was once under a large cairn of piled stones- 150 carts’ worth- which the people then plundered for some building project, discovering the cist beneath and inspecting the bones, the current whereabouts of which are unknown. What today appears rather underwhelming, especially with so regal a name, would once have been rather imposing.

This is what death always does: it diminishes. Old age slowly wears us away, and death is the end result. Dying separates us from the light, the colour, the sounds and the pleasures of earth. The 'second death' does the same for heaven, but Christ the great death-killer ensures that those who trust in Him will rise greater at the resurrection than they ever were during their lives. All who live outside of Him will find death to be a terrible, wasting, destroying judgement; in Him, however, it is a process by which the seed is buried but sprouts to become something gloriously greater.

Edom is there, her kings and all her princes; despite their power, they are laid with those killed by the sword. They lie with the uncircumcised, with those who go down to the pit. Ezekiel 32:29