Writing to God: Holy Saturday

I Kings 19: 11-13
"Between Hopelessness and Hope"

The Gospel of Mark, after detailing so precisely the events of the week - and in 3 hour increments the events of Friday - says nothing about Saturday, the sabbath day.  The day of rest.  And for the followers of Jesus, the day of numbness and loss.

And so my prayer today is for those who felt the sting of Jesus' death all too closely.  It is also for those, living today, who have ever felt as though God has left them, and rolled a stone of finality over the hope in their lives.
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Today.  Today I wait.  O God.

My mouth is dry.  My heart is numb.  My eyes have nothing left to shed.

Does the world go on around me and it is I who cannot move?

Am I the only one who is staring into the face of rock solid emptiness?

O Lord, if it was something I did, can you give me just one more chance?

O Lord, if just one mind could have been changed to have prevented this…I would try.

But the thought of you having anything to do with the horror of this whole mess…no I cannot go there.
Not today.

And so, you must be gone.  But I pray that you will return in glory more magnificent than before.
O God, your people ache.

Today.  Today I wait.
I wait for a still, small voice to tell us that you are here.

And that this ending, this… death… is not the final word.

I wait for things I cannot be sure of.

Amen.

Writing to God: Good Friday

Mark 15: 1-47
"Darkness over the Land"

Today's prayer is one of hopelessness and anguish.  All over the world today, Good Friday is more than just a horrible thing of the past - it is reality.  As we remember and mourn the death of Jesus, let us also remember and mourn the lost, the forgotten, the voiceless, the vulnerable, the lives that we know and the ones we will never know who have lost hope that this life, at its heart, is good.
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The darkness feels suffocating.  God, it is hard to breathe.  It is though all hope, all possibility, every potential for good was just sucked up in a vacuum of despair.

Jesus died and still children go hungry.
Jesus died and war did not cease.
Jesus died and the rules of love and respect tightened around the rules of the privileged and powerful.

Jesus breathed his last and when he did, thousands more were forgotten.  Prayers of hope no longer whispered in the morning.

Why, God?  What now?

Where is your kingdom when acts of violence dominate our world?
Where is your saving grace when all we see is news reports of destruction, hypocrisy, fear, injustice?

Jesus died and children go hungry.
Jesus died and animals are abused.
Jesus died and the kid at school is bullied.
Jesus died and the numbers on death row increase; the fear of dark streets at night follow us into daylight.

The experience of loss and death causes us to cry out to you, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?!"

Jesus.

Don't.  Breathe.  Your.  Last.

O, God, tear open our hearts and stay with your children today.

Weep with us as we collapse at the foot of the cross.  If we are there at all.

Amen.