The Terrible Silencing we Cannot Master

Holy God who hovers daily round us in fidelity and compassion,

this day we are mindful of another, dread-filled hovering,

that of the power of death before which we stand

thin and needful.

All our days, we are mindful of the pieces of our lives

and the parts of your world

that are on the loose in destructive ways.

We notice that wildness midst our fear and our anger unresolved.

We mark it in a world of brutality and poverty and hunger

all around us.

We notice all our days.

But on this day of all days,

that great threat looms so large and powerful.

It is not for nothing

that we tremble at these three hours of darkness

and the raging earthquake.

It is not for nothing

that we have a sense of our helplessness

before the dread power of death that has broken loose

and that struts against our interest and even against our will.

Our whole life is not unlike the playground in the village,

lovely and delightful and filled with squeals unafraid,

and then we remember the silencing

of all those squeals in death,

and we remember the legions of Kristy's

that are swept away in a riddle too deep for knowing.

Our whole life is like that playground

and on this dread-filled Friday we pause before

the terrible silencing we cannot master.

So we come in our helpless candor this day...

remembering, giving thanks, celebrating...

but not for one instant unmindful of dangers too ominous

and powers too sturdy and threats well beyond us.

We turn eventually from our hurt for children losts.

We turn finally from all our unresolved losses

to the cosmic grief at the loss of Jesus.

We recall and relive that wrenching Friday

when the hurt cut to your heart.

We see in that terrible hurt, our losses

and your full embrace of loss and defeat.

We dare pray while the darkness descends

and the earthquake trembles,

we dare pray for eyes to see fully

and mouths to speak fully the power of death all around,

we dare pray for a capacity to notice unflinching

that in our happy playgrounds other children die,

and grow silent,

we pray more for your notice and your promise

and your healing.

Our only urging on Friday is that you live this as we must

impacted but not destroyed,

dimmed but not quenched.

For your great staying power

and your promise of newness we praise you.

It is in your power

and your promise that we take our stand this day.

We dare trust that Friday is never the last day,

so we watch for the new day of life.

Hear our prayer and be your full self toward us.

Amen.

(Walter Brueggemann, Good Friday//1991)

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"Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eil, lema sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" Mt 27:45-46