Today we begin Holy Week, the week that takes Christ from the acclaim of the crowds in Jerusalem, through the intimacy of friends gathered together in the upper room, to the Last Supper, to the solitude of the Garden of Gethsemane, and to the isolation of the cross. From crowds to camaraderie, to aloneness, to abandonment.
This year’s unique Holy Week finds some of us in each of this settings. Some of us are isolating in the midst of our families or roommates in a group house, some of us with a spouse or partner, and some of us are alone. Each has it challenges. A week ago a parishioner texted me saying, “After two weeks, I am not dealing well with this forced 24/7 with my wonderful spouse.”
And this morning, Daisy passed on to me someone’s comment, “My wife and I play this fun game during quarantine, it’s called ‘Why Are You Doing It That Way?’ and there are no winners.”
In the midst of this pandemic, living together can be more challenging that anyone ever thought. At the same time aloneness and abandonment can be terrifying.
Last night, journalist Katy Tur tweeted: “My friend’s 73 yr. old mother went to the ER at Interfaith [Hospital] in Brooklyn at 6 PM last night. She’s now been sitting in a chair in the ER for 29 hours waiting for a bed. She has a bad cough, a fever, and violent chills. She calls her daughter crying pain and fear.”
The loneliness of the single person quarantined by themselves, the terror of a sick person adrift in an overwhelmed healthcare system, these feelings bring us back to our Blessed Lord’s cry from the cross on Good Friday, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
In the pain and agony of the cross, Jesus felt cut off from the love of the Father. The One who said to Jesus, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” was seemingly gone.
There is no more terrifying moment in the story of salvation than Jesus’ cry from the cross. The affection and wholeness of the triune God has come apart. The universe is tearing. And that is how it feels abandoned in an emergency room or in the dark of the night. At every moment of our lives, from birth to death, we are shaped and defined by our relationships with other persons, who are in turn shaped and defined by their relationships to other persons, going back in time to the origin of life itself. And to be outside of that chain of relationships is terrifying.
The Book of Genesis tells us that, “The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone."
By throwing our lot in with Christ, we take what we’ve got, we take the relationships we have, and those we don’t have. Through Christ and the relationships he has, we find our way through to a new place.
This week we walk with Christ through the isolation, the abandonment, and terror, through the gate of death and we will find ourselves on the other side. We will find ourselves in a resurrected life made plain in the communion of the Risen Lord and the women at tomb.
As we move down this lonely path, let us pray for those who are alone.
Almighty God, whose Son had nowhere to lay his head:
Grant that those who are alone may not be desolate in their
solitude, but that, following in his steps, they may find
fulfillment in loving you and their neighbors;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Andrew +
- Holy Week Schedule at www.csmsg.org:
- Morning Prayer, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 8:00 AM
- Maundy Thursday 7:00 PM
- Good Friday 12 Noon
- Easter Sunday 10:00 AM
- Be on the look out for a phone call from Church Receptionist Becky Arthur or other staff members, as we update our Realm directory.
