Houston McKelvey writing in the Belfast News Letter today –
We will certainly remember Holy Week 2020. Churches closed. Funerals disrupted. Gathering for prayer, study or choir practice cancelled. And it is all cocooned in realistic fear.
Churches, clergy and other leaders have responded. Daily prayers and worship have been offered through various forms of social communication. Indeed I was almost over-faced for choice.
We all come to Holy Week with our own templates and spiritual heritage. My faith and vocation was nurtured in a small rural parish. Holy Week services were a key element in my Christian growth.
I have the advantage of being nurtured when all parishes of my church used the same Book of Common Prayer.
Lent for my parish began with “A Penetential Service” and throughout Lent at mid-week services and during Holy Week we used the second “Alternative Form of Evening Prayer.” The service is also known as “Compline” and reflects the late night service used by monastic religious orders.
Its words kept ringing through my mind as the current crisis evolved.
It begins, “The Lord Almighty grant us a quiet night and a perfect end.”
The words immediately following are a stark statement from the Epistle of St Peter – “Brethren, be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the Devil walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith.”
Four excerpts from the Psalms follow which bring words of comfort and hope but in equally stark language. “Be my strong rock and house of defence, that thou mayest save me.” But there is also sureity. “He shall deliver thee from the snare of the hunter…He shall defend thee under his wings and thou shalt be safe”
Before and after the Song of Simeon, “Lord , now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace…for mine eyes have seen thy salvation” is this prayer, “Save us, O Lord, while waking, and guard us while sleeping, that while we are awake we may watch with Christ, and when we sleep we may rest in peace.”
Following confession of our sins and absolution, the benediction included this response, “We will lay us down and take our rest; For it is thou Lord only, that makest us dwell in safety.”
On this Saturday, the Eve of Easter, after the crucifixion and death of Jesus yesterday, his disciples, his most intimate followers who had witnessed the dreadful events at Calvary, were catatonic with fear. They too were in lockdown in the very room in which Christ had celebrated the first Holy Communion, breaking and blessing the symbols of his body and blood.
These men were literally and justifiably in fear for their lives. Most of them had broken down under the stress of the previous days. One had betrayed him. Several turned away at the cross through a combination of shock and fear. Indeed they each could have been diagnosed as having post trauma stress disorder
Like our present society, they were overcome by the horrific events of which they had been witnesses. They had gone into lockdown. They were truly scared.
Whilst that was happening the Gospels’ views are that Christ was conquering death.
Tomorrow throughout western Christianity, Christians of widely differing tenets of faith, will unite to witness to the most major event the world has ever witnessed. Women went to the tomb of Jesus and discovered it was empty. One had an encounter with Jesus. With her friends they went to that Upper Room and brought the good news to a group of very dispirited men.
I pray that Christ will enable us also to heal our society and our world.