This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Lamentations 3:37-58; Hebrews 4:1-16
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 12 (“Song of Creation,” BCP, p. 88); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)
Collect for Holy Saturday. O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so may we await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me, and darkness is my only companion. — Psalm 88:19. “This coronavirus situation plays into my overwhelming fear of abandonment,” said a friend the other day. Many people right now are feverishly working, too many of them at great peril to their own health: manning medical facilities, delivering goods, manufacturing equipment, serving up take-out orders, hauling off trash. At the same time, many people, like my friend, are stuck in an isolation that feels like Psalm 88’s: “You have put my friends far from me … I am in prison and cannot get free” (verse 9). We have desperately sick relatives out of state, whom we can’t visit. Loved ones in locked-down assisted living facilities. Families who can’t bury a deceased grandparent or parent or spouse or child. Weddings on hold. Bad cases of cabin fever.
My wife tells me that, in her experience, the last couple of months of her pregnancies were filled with an uncomfortable waiting. Each baby’s arrival was an eagerly awaited event. In the meantime, however, she knew long days waiting for night because they were so tiring, and long nights waiting for day because they were so uncomfortable. While the exhaustion and the discomfort didn’t prevent the inevitability of birth, there were times when they threatened to overshadow the joy that was, indeed, around the corner.
The fact that this year we can’t share all the fanfare that makes Easter a spectacular “Easterpalooza” doesn’t prevent Easter from coming. The devil’s best shot couldn’t keep Jesus in the grave. And a coronavirus need not keep Easter’s “Alleluia” from gracing your lips tomorrow as you are freshly grasped by the precious truth that “He is risen.” And just so, the shared misery that currently has taken hold of the whole earth makes all the more bracing the urging in today’s epistle: “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
Recently, another friend spoke into a meeting of people frantically trying to “save Easter” with all sorts of over-the-top ideas. She said simply this: “Be still, and know that I am God.” Be still. The frenzy stopped. The room grew quiet. I think we all understood something freshly: we don’t “save” Easter. Easter saves us. All we have to do is wait…and receive.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+