Bearing Our Grief

I was really looking forward to Holy Week this year.  I've grown to love the traditions of this most sacred week of the Christian year at my home parish of St James.  The procession of palms on Palm Sunday, the Maundy Thursday foot washing and overnight vigil with the consecrated elements, the Good Friday Stations of the Cross walk from the YMCA to St James, followed by the solemn evening liturgy.  Then the services of Easter, the regional gathering of Episcopal parishes at the NEMAC Easter vigil on Saturday evening, and the new fire and joyous liturgies of Easter Sunday. 

Last year, my Holy Week was different.  Immediately following the Maundy Thursday Eucharist, I got a call from Alex that his dad had very little time left.  I rushed to the hospital and held his hand as he said goodbye to his father.  That night I think we felt some of what the disciples might have felt that same weekend two thousand years ago - the desolation, numbness, and most of all the wondering why.  Why did this have to happen?  Why did God allow this?  We wrestled with those questions that night.  I missed being with my parish family for Good Friday, but I knew that I had made the right decision and gone where the Spirit had called me.

So this year, I thought, I get another chance.  I can experience it all again at St James before I go away to seminary.  Until COVID-19 happened.

I'm not sure why I'm like this, but apparently I just process things more slowly than other people.  For weeks I've been hearing people talk about the grief of the things they'll miss out on due to the quarantines and the social distancing that we must do to "flatten the curve".  It just didn't really hit me emotionally until today.  Other people are grieving the loss of important events in their lives - commencements, proms, weddings, baby showers, concerts, etc.  But I guess I just didn't think about how much Holy Week has come to mean to me until it got here.  I understand the importance of what we are doing this year and that it is saving lives.  I really don't want anyone I love, even anyone I know remotely, to get this virus.  So I'm all in favor of staying home and cancelling these things this year.  But it came at a really difficult time for me.


Normally I try to come up with some kind of redemptive turn in these blog posts, so that something that starts off in darkness will end in light.  But right now, I'm just really sad.  I know that this period of darkness, however long it may be, will end, and I know I'll be able to see and embrace my friends and family again when it does.  For right now, though, I do mourn the loss of the traditions that have come to mean so much.

I tried to find something in scripture to tie in with this, perhaps a passage from Lamentations or the "suffering servant" section of Isaiah.  But none of those really jumped out at me.  Actually, I came to realize that the passage I'm feeling the most drawn to at the moment is the shortest in the whole Bible, John 11:35.  "Jesus wept."

Minutes before the "happy ending", before the raising of Lazarus, Jesus wept.  I mean, he didn't really have to, right?  He could have "fast-forwarded" to the joy.  But he still took that time to feel grief for the death of his friend, and to share in that grief with his family.  For me, the temptation is always to look for the optimistic spin and try to avoid feeling anything negative.  But that's not how life works.  "Grief is the price we pay for love." 

So for right now, I grieve.  I won't try to sugar-coat it or pretend it doesn't hurt.  I'll feel what I'm feeling instead of trying to numb it, and that will make the joy of resurrection even more intense once we get there.  Even if that's not until June.

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