Some mornings I wake up, longing for another human to hug me, squeeze my hand, or even just put their hand on my shoulder This deprivation of touch makes me feel alien, sub-human. And there’s no end in sight. These are the days in this pandemic – how is this word my reality? – when my heart is ripped out, bleeding onto the floor.
I hate that these words are a regular part of our vocabulary – pandemic, quarantine, social distancing, face masks, new normal, and hand sanitizer. I struggle to talk about anything else, because this is all there is right now. There is just the virus and the waiting.
And in the midst of the pandemic we find ourselves in Holy Week and Easter.
I don’t even know how to approach Easter, because I feel stuck in a never-ending Holy Saturday, perpetually waiting. My waiting is anything but glamorous – stuck in an apartment, wearing a variety of sweats and leggings, bouncing back and forth between numbness and feeling all the feelings at once – and I guess it wasn’t for Jesus’ disciples either. I wonder if they lashed out against each other as the pain overwhelmed them. Did someone try to be the caretaker? Or the strong one? Did another attempt to rationalize their trauma? Was one in a corner, sobbing in the fetal position? Was another in shocked silence?
They only had to wait a day for their rescue to come, but they had no idea rescue was even on its way. Their pain seemed like the pain of anyone who had lost a loved one. This is it. This is the end. I feel my pain and eventually it will quiet down to a whisper that never fully disappears. They had no idea what would transpire on Sunday.
I do not know when this will end. I don’t know when another human being will touch me. I don’t know what the new normal will be. All I can do is wait, pray, grieve, and walk.
I’ve returned to a song from The Brilliance, called, “Now and at the Hour of Our Death.” It’s gone through a few iterations, but started an adaptation of a prayer to the Virgin Mother. The line that resonates with me – especially in this time – goes:
Holy Mother of God, pray for us, pray for us. Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
This is the hour of our death, – for some literally – as we are submerged in an ocean of deaths, tiny and mammoth. As we lose the illusion of control we thought we held. As we lose jobs, lose security, lose our sense of normalcy. Lose the ability to meet together, touch each other, live life face to face.
And here we find ourselves in Holy Week, a time that the Evangelical Church has tried to sidestep in order to experience the glories of Easter. But this year we cannot. We cannot escape the death all around.
And I shake with sobs and wails too deep for words to express as I realize that I cannot escape these deaths. I need Jesus. Holy Week has become an active part of my Christian experience and yet, I think this is the first time I really understand the sadness and sorrow that Jesus’ followers experienced on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Theirs is a cry for rescue:
Oh Son of God, rescue us, rescue us. Now and at the time of our death. Amen.
We are all crying out for rescue. We who have solved away all of our problems, numbed ourselves to the pain with busyness, Netflix, and substances of all kinds. We cannot fix this ourselves. We need help.
WE NEED HELP!
I wish that saying these words would magically make this pandemic go away. I’ve learned my lesson and now it will be alright. God doesn’t work like that. He’s not a puzzle to be solved by praying in just the right form, using just the right words, at just the right time.
For now, I continue on in this Holy Saturday, crying out for rescue. And waiting.
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