“Evening came…”
This Day, with its eternal hours, is so haunting in its strange beauty as it mingles horror and glory, shame and mercy, jeers and psalms, violence and gentleness, torture and love, blood and water.
Today is suspended leaps to mind – an exquisite hymn of the Orthodox Church sung on this Day. Here it is in Arabic.
On the Cross an inversion invades reality: God places himself at the mercy of his creatures that creatures might be placed at the mercy of God.
O marvelous exchange!
On this Day Liturgy falls silent before the supreme liturgical act, as sacrificial worship is offered by God-made-flesh to God-Unbegotten.
Around Golgotha the cosmos spins, whirls in sacred dance as once did David with abandon.
God is slain.
Silent awe as we are granted access to the inner chambers of divine life!
Silent awe as violence unveils the human heart of God!
Silent awe as a lance unseals for us eternal fountains!
But let linger now, breathe deep of this Day that ends at sundown…
Weep o’er the disgrace,
shroud your eyes in shame;
marred, that deathless Face;
a worm, th’eternal Name.
Let us rest with God, for now at last his Sabbath has come.
Evening came, morning followed.
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Thank you for your time in reflecting on this most sorrowful of days. May God bless you this Easter.
ReplyDeleteAnd yourself as well, JobSitWaiting; may He clasp your hand and raise you, and us all, from the dung heap. A blessed Easter, my friend!
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