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Waiting for JesusSaturday, April 19, 2014
Matthew 28:2-3 Beautiful words from the Prophets grace these stories: Isaiah 54, Isaiah 55, Baruch 3, and Ezekiel 36. Throughout the readings, congregation and reader respond to each other with some of the most beautiful psalms of the Bible: Psalm 33, 16, 30, 19, 42, and 118. But this morning the churches are silent. The altar is wrapped in black. The world holds its breath because Jesus died and has not returned. The word "vigil" is not used lightly. Like a nurse beside the bed, the church sits beside the diseased and dying world, praying for its rescue, soothing a brow where it can, but powerless on its own to effect rebirth, reunion with God. We are all just beggars when it comes to union with God. Jesus brought the bread but now he's gone. The living water he drank and shared left with him. The words of Teresa of Avila haunt me today, "The center of our soul is difficult to define. It's hard enough just to believe in it." God promised us his presence; Jesus assured us that his promise was fulfilled. In this vigil, we can remember those promises. The stories, the words of prophets and psalms echo in high Gothic arches of ancient churches. They are all we have while we sit sleepless in the dead of night, silent, vigilant, watchmen in the early morning. We are, Martin Laird says, "chiseling away our thought-shackled illusions of separation from God." And we are waiting for Jesus. On this day especially I have no business obsessively watching and re-watching the angry, self-pitying, righteous video of my own life. The story today, is about God, not me. It's time for me to pay attention to that story. Every word in the Bible is about you, Lord, and I think over and over that it's about me. Shelter me from myself, hide me in the shadow of your rock. Silence my protest with a quiet kiss, brushing my forehead with joy and peace. Let me find myself in you. |
In Catholic churches tonight some foundational stories from the Bible will be read: the story of creation, Abraham and the near-sacrifice of his son Isaac, the Israelites' crossing of the Red Sea and destruction of their Egyptian pursuers, and the resurrection of Jesus.