“The Marathon can wait. It will be there waiting for us. It is always there waiting for us. Jesus is dead. We stand at the foot of the cross. Sunday’s going to come. Let us not rush to it too quickly. For now let us stay in this place as much as the world is urging us to move on. For now let us stay in this place and cry with our Creator.”
Meditation by Mike Kinman & Kimberli Hudson at the Great Three Hours on Good Friday, April 19, 2019. Reading: John 19:28-31, 38-42
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I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you
Well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Baby I’ve been here before
I’ve seen this room and I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
But love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
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It is finished.
The final breath.
The final heartbeat.
The minor fall.
The major lift.
And then silence.
Incomprehensible, baffling, eternal silence.
“It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man,” Clint Eastwood says in Unforgiven. “You take away everything he’s got … and everything he’s ever gonna have.”
It happens in an instant.
Everything gone.
Everything they’ve got.
Everything they’re ever gonna have.
Life can change in an instant.
Life can end in an instant.
A final breath.
A final heartbeat.
Silence.
It is finished.
And what is left?
What is left is the void.
The void where she used to be.
where he used to be.
where they used to be.
We are never more aware of the space someone takes up in our lives than when that space is empty.
When we know they are never coming back.
When it is finished.
The echoes of the love are the sweetest of pain.
We crave them.
We cling to them.
We fear them fading away.
We press our face into the clothes hanging in the closet.
We still sleep on our side of the bed.
We cringe inside when someone sits at their seat at the table.
We listen over and over again to their voice mail message.
We can’t wait to tell them something … and when we remember we have to feel the pain all over again.
We always knew in ways large and small that loss was the price of love.
But not like this.
Never like this.
The echoes of love are the sweetest of pain.
We are at once so grateful for what was and devastated at what now is.
We wail with the deepest lament
…and still from our lips comes the strangest of words.
…from our lips, love draws an hallelujah.
Even at the grave, we say.
Even at the grave, we make our song.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Why?
Why?
It seems to mock death.
It seems to mock the pain.
It seems almost obscene.
We stand at the foot of the cross.
It is the death of hope.
It is the death of love.
It feels like the death of us … maybe we even long for the death of us, so crushing is the pain.
Why does love draw such a strange, even offensive word from our lips at a time like this?
At our worst it is incredibly dysfunctional.
At our worst, our Hallelujah is our feeble try to deny the pain of the cross.
At our worst, our Hallelujah is our futile attempt to fill the void with a theology of cold comfort and an illusion of “really, I’m fine.”
At our best, our Hallelujah is a deep encounter with the void and realizing there is deep holiness in the deep sweetness of the deep pain.
At our best our Hallelujah is realizing that even if for the briefest of moments, there was something more.
Something, someone worth dying for that made us realize there was a reason to live.
At our best, our Hallelujah is realizing that even if for the briefest of moments…
We felt love.
We gave love.
We knew love.
And that somehow though death has taken everything … the love remains.
We always knew in ways large and small that loss was the price of love.
But not like this.
Never like this.
And yet we would do it all again.
We would do it all again for just one moment.
The echoes of the love are the sweetest of pain.
We are at once so grateful for what was and devastated at what now is.
We wail with the deepest lament
…and still from our lips comes that strangest of words.
…from our lips, love draws an hallelujah.
Because love is not a victory march.
It’s not a cry that you hear at night.
It’s not someone who’s seen the light.
Love is a cold and a broken Hallelujah.
+++++
Well, maybe there’s a god above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry that you hear at night
It’s not someone who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
+++
“Grief is the final act of love.”
That’s what Lauren London said last week at the memorial for Nipsey Hussle.
“Grief is the final act of love. My heart hears you, I feel you everywhere. I’m so grateful that I had you. I love you beyond this earth, and until we meet again, the marathon continues.”
Grief is the final act of love.
After the final breath.
The last heartbeat.
The silence.
The void.
After it all, there is grief.
There is lament.
The marathon continues.
And the grief remains.
We learn to cope with it.
We learn to live with it.
And it never goes away.
Healing is recognizing that grief becomes a part of us.
Healing is letting grief live on as that strange combination of pain and gratitude.
Healing is letting grief live on as memories that sustain us but somehow do not hold us back.
Healing is making our peace with the pain, not just of our loss but of all the ways we fell short, all the ways it all went wrong, before that final silence.
Healing is making our peace with all the times we did our best, it wasn’t much. We couldn’t feel, so we tried to touch.
Grief is the final act of love.
And yet, our world tells us that we need to rush through grief like a stop on an uptown express train.
We live in a world that fears grief because we trust more in the power of anesthetics to soothe us than the power of pain to teach us, the power of love to heal us.
We live in a world that fears grief, so we put timetables on each other’s grief and on our own. Timetables that ask those who are grieving to cut short this final act of love to suit the comfort of a world that cannot bear to face its own deep pain.
Timetables that do not give us the time to grow the resilience to live with the grief, to honor the grief, to become stronger, wiser to love deeper because of the grief.
In her sermon at my institution here, Becca Stevens told me one of the most important things I could do as rector of All Saints Church was to grieve.
“Grieve with abandonment,” Becca said. “Grieve with abandonment. There is more to grieve as we get older … and it becomes deeper and richer.”
The women of Thistle Farms write:
“Cry with your creator. Even though we may feel lonely when we cry, we are never truly alone. Our despair is part of a larger chorus howling for justice that stretches back to the prophets.
“We are working on our own recovery, and no one can do that work for us. We can listen to one another’s stories and offer support as we walk this sacred ground.
“Every step of the way we remind one another that God hears our cry.”
“Cry with your creator.”
Grief is the final act of love.
So, let us love.
Jesus is dead.
We stand at the foot of the cross.
We watch his mother cradle her dead child in her arms.
We see his body laid in the tomb.
Jesus is dead.
It is the death of hope.
It is the death of love.
It feels like the death of us … maybe we even long for the death of us, so crushing is its pain.
Grief is the final act of love.
Not just for the one who has died. But for us.
It is an act of love to let ourselves mourn.
To grieve with abandonment.
To shed tears without apology.
To let others hold us with no expectation of us tempering our lament for the sake of their comfort.
Grief is the final act of love.
The Christ who cried out from the cross reminds us that our capacity to mourn, to lament, to grieve is God’s gift of love … to us.
Where is your grief?
Where in your body does it hide?
The tears you have not been allowed or not allowed yourself or still have remaining to shed?
The cries that still are trapped in your breast screaming to be let loose.
Where is your grief?
Where in your body does it hide?
This is the time.
We stand at the foot of the cross.
We can stand here for as long as it takes.
This is the time.
Grief is the final act of love.
Each tear is a drop of healing.
Each cry is an anthem of hope.
There’s a blaze of light in every word.
It doesn’t matter which you heard.
The holy or the broken hallelujah.
The marathon can wait.
It will be there waiting for us.
It is always there waiting for us.
Jesus is dead.
We stand at the foot of the cross.
Sunday will come. Let us not rush to it too quickly.
For now, let us stay in this place, as much as the world is urging us to move on.
For now, let us stay in this place and cry with our creator.
For now, let us wail … for we have held it inside too long.
For now, let us grieve … for we have let our fear imprison us too long.
For now, let us love … and cry together a holy and a broken Hallelujah.
++++++++++
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
