At Taizé, every Saturday is Holy Saturday —that liminal lament between the bottom-falling-out of Jesus-Messiah’s death by crucifixion on Good Friday and the inconceivable possibility of Christ’s Resurrection on that first Easter Sunday.
The brothers and sisters of the ecumenical Community of Taizé in
France sing with their many thousands of guests from around the globe,
“Our darkness is never darkness in Your sight. The deepest night is
clear as the daylight.” “There can be no greater love, than to lay down
our life for those we love.”
At Taizé, each day’s readings and songs
are chosen as though each week is the week of Christ’s Passion.
At
Taizé, every Saturday is Holy Saturday —that liminal lament between the
bottom-falling-out of Jesus-Messiah’s death by crucifixion on Good
Friday and the inconceivable possibility of Christ’s Resurrection on
that first Easter Sunday.
We are all vulnerable
We are living this Holy Saturday 2020 in the most comprehensive global
leveling of human experience of the past century: everyone on this
earth is simultaneously confronting mortality in the face of an
unconcerned and unfettered new form of corona virus. Even the “haves”
—who lived in the self- and societal assurance that they or their
nations’ financial and intellectual resources, and miracles of science
would somehow always be available save them —now face the reality that
they too are part of all vulnerable humanity and share fully in the
“have-not’s” experience of helplessness, insecurity, inadequate access
to the health care resources they need, and the real possibility of
dying in isolation from loved ones. It is a time when it is clear that
as Jesus taught, God makes the rain to fall on the righteous and the
unrighteous. (
Matthew 5:45)
As people of Christ’s Way,
we know the countless stories of God’s rescuing, saving, forgiving love
throughout the history of our faith. We know the assurances Jesus gave
his friends and students: that we will never be forsaken, never left as
orphans; that in believing in Jesus we will never truly die; He himself
will come and take us to the place prepared for us.
But in the suffocating fear and despair of Jesus’ crucifixion, these
promises and assurances were overcome on Holy Saturday by the very
individuals who had heard these promises by Jesus in the flesh only 36
hours earlier. With Jesus hoped for redeemer dead, and all the powers
of religion, state, and empire collaborating in his execution, now all
was fear. All was the threat of imminent death. All the hoped for
securities of life, livelihood, and promises of a better future were
suddenly gone, buried behind a sealed stone.
Across
the world on this Holy Saturday we people of all faiths, cultures, and
walks of life are suffering and dying from the same new disease. We are
in deep solidarity with our predecessors of nearly 2000 years ago, as
we dread that this Holy Saturday darkness will continue day after day
after day and month after month. We dread death. And even in our
prayers and faith, our minds cannot imagine how this dark day ever
transforms into the Light of saving Grace and Divine Resurrection. We
will not be permitted to celebrate our Easter Sunday together in the old
way. Like the captive Jews in exile, we wonder how we can sing God’s
song in this sad, strange new land we find ourselves.
Hope is Birthed from Truth in Lament
We fear that the the
pandemic will harm the immigrants and homeless we have tried to serve
and support in solidarity; that our hopes and work for the kingdom of
heaven to come to earth and heal our planet, bring divine justice,
liberation and peace, and dignity to all will be thwarted by the loss of
earthly resources caused by global economic collapse as collateral
damage caused by this microscopic non-living virus.
But poet and renowned Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann
insists that Hope is birthed only from Truth that includes Lament.
Lament is the necessary element to prepare the space within us and our
societies for the miracle of our Creator always doing a new and saving
thing. To lament, we must fully inhabit our grief and fear. The
heart’s cry of God’s people, the Lament of Good Friday and Holy Saturday
is the the necessary precursor to empty ourselves so that the seeded
memory of the history of God’s saving God’s people and creation, and
blessing the meek, sorrowful, and mourning can grow into the newness and
fullness of resurrection life promised. A life of solidarity,
compassion, and covenant where all meek are blessed and there is no
estrangement. (Brueggemann, “Hope from Memory”
Devotions for Lent: A Way Other Than our Own)
And so today we lament. And then we sing and pray to
the One who makes all things new, that “Our darkness is never darkness
in your sight. The deepest night is clear as the daylight...Help us to
live your greater Love, and lay down our lives for those we love”
because you, Perfect Love, first love us. Amen.
Join Us Year Round
All are welcome to
join in the extension of Taizé worship which has been offered for 18
years by the ecumenical healing prayer ministry of Hope+in+the+Desert Episcopal Church (8700
Alameda Blvd NE, Albuquerque) every third Tuesday of the month from 7:30-8:30 PM.
A History of Taizé
The Taizé ecumenical community was founded in 1944 as a small quasi-monastic community of men living together in poverty and obedience, open to all Christians. Taizé was then a small town, unoccupied by Nazi Germany, in Burgundy, France. The Taizé faith community was born in the darkest hours of Fascism’s rise around the globe, exterminating and waging war on scapegoated “others.” As a young man, its founder Brother Roger, a Reformed Christian son of a pastor, bicycled from his home in Switzerland to Taizé in 1940 to help Jews escape across the line of demarcation away from Nazi troops. Roger and his sister bought a house where they hid the Jewish refugees, until they got word the Gestapo knew of their activities and they had to flee. He returned in 1944 to launch his unique vision of an ecumenical monastic community.
Brother Roger was murdered in 2005 during one of the community’s services of prayer and song: martyred, as he stood, speaking words of faithful love, between children that were seated around him and a deranged woman wielding a knife. The ongoing prayers, songs, and teaching of youth from around the world to live Christ’s example of selfless love, in all languages by Taizé’s community of Reform, Roman and Orthodox Christians epitomizes the triumph of new life and hope growing out of the darkness of hate and destruction.
[Rebecca Hemphill serves in the healing prayer and music ministries at
Hope+in+the+Desert Episcopal Church and works professionally as a hospice chaplain].
