A
Meditation for the Triduum:
Maundy
Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday
Like
most children, I was often afraid of the dark.
My guess is that most of us remember being afraid of the dark as a
children too. To calm my anxiety my mother, after she tucked me in for the night, made sure that the door to my room was
not closed completely. There was a
narrow space, a crack, which allowed a narrow, sliver of light to come in from the
hallway—I can see it right now—assuring me that I’m would not be cut
off from the light, that I would not be completely alone. That assurance allowed me to drift off to
sleep.
Sometimes it’s all that’s needed to
help us face the darkness. Just a little
light goes a long way. Maybe you had a
nightlight in your bedroom to ward off the dark—maybe you still do. Yes, it’s amazing what even a little light
can do. Strike a match in a completely
dark room. It’s remarkable how much light
a tiny flame can generate.
Light and darkness. We need both.
One complete day consists of both.
God blesses both the night and the day in Genesis (1:5). Both are good. But we tend to prefer one to the other and if
we have to choose one it will probably be light, which is only natural. We need light to live. We need light in order
to see where we’re going. We need light
to see one another.
Light
is associated with goodness, purity, wisdom, knowledge, truth, and divinity. We tend to associate darkness as the opposite
of goodness and purity and wisdom, knowledge, truth, and divinity. Within the Christian tradition we, generally,
privilege light over darkness.
Light=good; darkness=bad. When we
divide up reality this way, it’s easy for us to become dangerously dualistic
and then turn everything into a cosmic struggle: light vs. darkness, good vs.
evil, and so forth.
On Maundy Thursday, after we share
Communion, we walk into the sanctuary and hear the story of Christ’s suffering
on the cross and about his death. We
call that portion of the service Tenebrae,
from the Latin meaning “darkness” or “shadows.”
The service ends in darkness, not complete darkness, but pretty close to
it. The story, itself, though, ends in
total darkness when the stone rolls tight over the entrance to Jesus’
tomb. That is dark.
It takes some courage to remember
these days. A majority of Christians go
from the triumphalism of Palm Sunday straight to the joy of Easter morning and
never walk through Holy Week, never attend to the events of Maundy Thursday or
Good Friday or Holy Saturday. Some skip Palm Sunday altogether and just show up on Easter,
which is okay, of course. (I’m just grateful whoever
shows up for worship on Easter.) Still, I
wonder why people avoid Holy Week observances.
I’m sure there are studies on this phenomenon, but I haven’t seen them. There are very practical reasons, I guess, evening
commitments during the week and the like.
For some, I know, it’s just too painful to focus on suffering and death.
It’s too close to home; it’s easier to
stay home. Perhaps some prefer to focus
on uplifting thoughts, for all of this talk about betrayal and trials and
crosses and tombs, it’s just too depressing.
Let’s be positive. Isn’t there enough pain and senseless suffering and death
in the world, why should we focus on this aspect of Holy Week? That’s a good question in light of the
events in Brussels this week.
It seems to me, though, that when we
a-void the void, avoid the darker
aspects of this week, when we run from the shadows, when we fail to confront
the darkness in the story—in us and in the world—then we overlook a crucial
dimension of this good news that we will celebrate this coming Lord’s Day and every
Lord’s Day.[1] If Christ was God’s Son on the cross, and the
same Christ that was raised three days later, then that means Christ was God’s
Son on Saturday, too, in the darkness
of the tomb.[2] The Resurrected One is the Lord who
confronted the darkness, both literally and symbolically, making even the place
of darkness and death the very place that yields new life, new light—a light,
as John’s Gospel tells us, that “shines in
the darkness,” which darkness cannot overcome (John 1:5). This means that even the darkness cannot
separate us from God’s love. Perhaps,
then, as Christ’s people, we shouldn’t be afraid of the dark places in the
world or in ourselves, because there are many people right now who do not know
or cannot believe or trust or even imagine that the darkness is anything
other than dark, who cannot imagine that the darkness can become a luminous
place that reveals the presence, not the absence, of the Holy One. That’s a cause for joy.
Contemporary hymn-writer Brian Wren
is even bold enough to connect the dark with
joy. The fourth verse of his hymn,
“Joyful Is the Dark,” the title alone is provocative, goes likes this:
“Joyful
is the dark coolness of the tomb,
waiting for the wonder of the morning;
never
was that midnight touched by dread and gloom:
darkness was the cradle of the
dawning.”[3]
Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) was
an imperfect servant of the Lord, like all of us. Perfection is not required of a saint. She was not a servant to perfection, but to a
deeper truth. “If ever I become a
saint,” she said, “I will surely be one of ‘darkness’—I will continually be
absent from heaven, to light the light of those in darkness on earth.”[4] We are called to enter the darkness for the
sake of those who are lost there.
The
American poet Wendell Berry, a Christian of deep conviction, who’s also a
farmer, wrote,
“To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.”[5]
Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and
Holy Saturday, let us wander through the shadows of the story and not be afraid. Let us sit and wait—in the dark—wait for the
dawning of something new to break forth from the tomb. May it
be so.
[1] On the necessity of facing
the void at the heart of existence, see James E. Loder, The Transforming Moment (Helmers & Howard, 1989).
[2] See Alan E. Lewis, Between the Cross & Resurrection: ATheology of Holy Saturday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001).
[3] Glory to God: The Presbyterian
Hymnal (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), #230.
[4] Teresa of Calcutta, Mother Teresa: Come to My Light (New
York: Rider, 2008).
[5] Wendell Berry, “To Know
the Dark,” Farming: A Handbook
(Counterpoint, 2011).
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