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.
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.
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.
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].
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