We are at the mid-point of Holy Week, and our Lenten journey will carry us through the most intense days that a person might imagine. Given that Surgeon General Gerome Adams said earlier this week, “This is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans’ lives, quite frankly. “This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localized. It’s going to be happening all over the country. And I want America to understand that.”
As followers of Jesus, we have an older narrative, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus’ story provides a pattern and a model for how to walk through this hardest time we might imagine. Jesus’ story moves us in one week from despair to great shock, great joy, and great hope!
Former Interim Minister, and dear friend Rev. Clara Young, shared the poem below with me two days ago. Sorrow-filled Road summons us to intentionally and faithfully journey through this week in which pandemic and passion are intertwined. I pray that it touches you as much as it did me.
Walking together to a new life! – Anne
Sorrow-filled Road
Holy Week summons
People of faith
On a different road
A Sorrow-filled Road
Through a lonesome valley
Mired in the mud
Caught in the quarantine’s quicksand
The path from parade to empty tomb
Seems littered with obstacles
Too heavy to move
“Hosanna” we cry out
“Hosanna” “Save Us”
Save us from power valued more than people
Save us from greed determining life or death
Save us from imaginary outcomes obscuring science
Save us from self-indulgence over common good
“Hosanna” we cry out
“Hosanna” “Save Us”
Set Your table before us in the presence of those who fail us
Fill us with Your mercy and Your compassion
Break open the Bread of Life for all your children
Pour the Cup of Blessing upon us
Fill us O Lord, fill us
Bring us into Your Holy Presence O God
Praying not just for what we want
But for what others need.
Bring us into the presence of
The lonely
The fearful
The anxious
The exhausted
Those worried about bills
Those who have no home
Those who are fearful to be isolated at home
Those who are overcome
Bring us into Your Holy Presence O God to see those we pass by daily
Standing before the cross this year we see suffering unimaginable
No longer a ritual for Good Friday afternoon
Every day, every hour we see pandemic’s pain
The cost of our unpreparedness
Convicted of the sin of omission
We pray, “Father, forgive us”
You take on this suffering of the world
Even as You did so long ago
You take on our pain
In the cross is our salvation, our healing
In the midst of death, life
Signs of life litter our roadside
Redbud and forsythia
Green buds and leafing trees
Our sorrowful road bursts with touches of color
Cases recovered
Curves dipping
Community happening, even in containment
Easter moments every day
Holy Week summons
People of faith
On a sorrow-filled road
Walking together
To a new life.
Clara Young
April 6, 2020
Holy Week during COVID-19 Pandemic
Wayfinding 