Lamenting and Hoping: A resurrection song for Christ and the world

by Ken Howcroft.

Why, O Lord, do you seem far off?
Why are you hard to find in these times of trouble,
when the world is distorted, disrupted
and fragmenting around us,
when abuse, isolation and broken relationships
surround us,
and we find ourselves awash with tears
in the deserts of desolation?
How has it come to this,
when people rage and politicians thunder
as waves of pandemics crash down upon them,
and we are all drowning in sickness, poverty and war?
Save us, Lord!
The waters are up to our neck.

Where is your healing?
So when you speak words of peace and forgiveness,
how can we hear them,
and experience your grace,
allowing it to transform us and our ways?
We have heard of new life,
of new beginnings
and a return to a normal
reshaped from the past for the future.
We have heard the talk,
but how are we to walk it?

We are out of our minds with anxiety and fear,
yet suddenly and unexpectedly
you come to be with us,
in our meetings and homes;
in our conversation on a journey;
and when we are striving to go back to what we did before,
trying to fish but catching
nothing.

Again and again
you come to us,
gathering us for meals,
strengthening us,
comforting our confusion,
prompting us to hear your voice
as we read the scriptures in heartening new ways;
miraculous banquets celebrating new life in the world,
foretastes in the present
of our past coming to us
reformed from the future:
a new heaven and earth but no longer the seas of chaos;
a new paradise garden now found in the city;
and a new people of God now including all peoples.
But as suddenly and unexpectedly as you come,
you vanish.
We cannot touch you.
We cannot hold on to you.
You are gone.

Why abandon us, O Lord?
Are you raising us up to forsake us again?

Or…
are you really just going ahead,
and if we share in your mission,
is it there we shall see you?

Remember, you say,
that heavenly banquet which we shared on that night,
celebrating the triumphs of God’s love
rooted in the Cross.
Did you see when I showed you my body
that it still had the holes from the nails
and the wound in my side,
raised to new life?

So, Lord,
are you gone from our table
to be with what the world belittled,
to create there your feast,
sharing food with the hungry and drink with the thirsty,
welcoming migrants and strangers,
providing cover for those with inadequate shelter or clothing,
caring for those who are sick,
and visiting those locked away?
Is it as we become one with you and with them
that they share with us
the bread of life
and the wine of mercy?

Is it when tears of gladness become tears of sadness
that tears of sorrow become tears of joy,
suffering, dying,
despairingly waiting,
rising and praising
commingled?
Is this the pain
that those who seem impaired
sometimes seem able to bear
and redeem?

Lord, help us become an openly broken people,
open to be raised to life with you,
raised with wounds still in hands and side.
As you wept over Lazarus with Martha and Mary,
and wept over the city, both institutions and people,
may we weep with those who weep
fresh tears of grace,
and discover in you the grace of tears.

April 2021; revised Easter 2024