Listen Lord: We Wait
Holy Saturday - Praying While We Wait
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many...
There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. from Matthew 27
We are waiting this morning. Somehow there is life in this season of stand still. Over the past few weeks, I have counted the days of our “Lent in Isolation”, and marked them by lament and petition, passion and praise. But through it all there has been an undercurrent of waiting for an answer from the God who tells us that we ought to pray as if someone, The One, is listening.
The terms of this human condition have not changed. But on this fifty-eleventh day of being separated from our gathering spaces, withdrawn out of pity for our neighbors and protection of our community, we are weighed down with waiting for an answer to come. Where is the life we are waiting for? What shame I feel for being presumptuous with all my plans. What distance, and what agony we remember in the helplessness and hiding of the people who were closest to Jesus in his last days and final hours before - and during - execution.
The role we take in this tragedy, even as the Lord is mid-conquer, is of the women who gathered at the foot of the cross. Midwives of the labor of death. Mercy’s ministers who would be rewarded with the first glimpses of tomorrow’s victory. What is true for this moment, however, is that they did not know.
What is true is that messengers of hope were sent to many of them, in the living form of previously passed away bodies from their community. What was their interaction with these saints from the distant shores beyond death’s doorway? How did they appear? What were their emotions, where did they go, after waking in their own graves and being brought to life for their escape?
We ponder the mysteries of this day, as our loved ones fight for life and gasp for air. We question the purpose of these waiting days. We are anxious for their ending. And we have only weeping wonder in the hours where “what now?” is “watch and pray.” We sit with the Marys opposite the tomb. We just sit here. We cannot rush, and we cannot worry the future to hurry. But we would hear the testimonies of those dead bodies come up from the grave, those victims of a virus released from fitful slumber. We would hear the heralds of a healing, and mourn with hope, while we wait.
When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. - from Matthew 27
Let’s pray together. Dear Lord Jesus, keep watch with those who work or wait or weep this day. And give your angels charge over those who sleep, and those who tend the sick, Lord Christ. Give rest to the weary. Bless the dying. Soothe the suffering. Pity the afflicted. Shield the joyous. And do it all, God, because you love us. (from Canon Frederick B. WIlliams)
We ponder your mysteries. We question the purpose of these waiting days. We are anxious for their ending. Your children are emptied Lord, just like you. The light fades from faith’s eyes. Our “hopes unborn have died”. Lord, we are through. Words have worn out and weeping has endured for the longest night ever. Listen Lord, we hate it here. Help us to wait on you.
We await life and victory for those whose work cannot be postponed. While we wait, Lord, help us to support, defend and celebrate the essential-ness of the people who wash our worlds, clean up after our own filth, cook and deliver our meals, those who tend the sick and those striving to keep us safe from sickness. We await revival and newness. We tarry for God’s power to bring justice to the places that have labeled the lowly. The very places where housekeepers and daycare workers live. We await honor for the places where people who are essential to our well-being are yet marked as non-essential to public health. We await an undoing of the curses of classism and social hierarchy.
We await the beloved community; in the places where blackness is associated with filth, where “ethnic” sounds and looks and smells are the so-called unclean and thus become the uninvited. Where “old people make me uncomfortable” and “little kids are so annoying”, “incarcerated folks deserve it”, “sex workers are nasty” and “un-housed people are dangerous” and of course “the male gender alone is empowered to lead”. King Jesus come back. Come consecrate these places where many of us live right now. Remind us that we and our worlds are clean, and help us hold on to this, no matter how your enemies strive to stain the world’s perceptions of us, or our perceptions of ourselves.
We ponder your mysteries. We question the purpose of these waiting days. We are anxious for their ending. Your children are over it, Lord. We are through. Words have worn out and weeping has endured for the longest night ever. Listen Lord, we hate it here. Help us to wait on you.
We await the testimony of renewal: “My soul is being healed.” Let us bathe in you, Will you come back to us and remove the hurt, the bitterness, the soreness. Remove the tiredness. Heal the body, ease the mind. Comfort the soul. Thank you, Jesus. You are not far from us. Thank God for the Lamb. Thank God for the Lamb. (from Thomasina Neely)
We raise these laments to you, Lord Jesus: King of the people, Savior of souls. Protector of futures, Author and Finisher of our faith. Amen
Liturgy: Human Rights Campaign Remaining Home in Faith: Interfaith Memorial Service
Music: Will You Sing, Kamasi Washington // Spritual Songs, Gregory Porter // Healing, Richard Smallwood
Art: Berni Searle