Hear
the Cicadas
by
Martha Bourlakas
Holy
Saturday sounds quiet. Yesterday, we heard the loud anguish of chaos: yelling,
crying, pleading, nailing, wailing. Today is different. We are heartbroken,
left holding the dead body of our beloved Jesus Christ, and we hear a
significant shift in tone. Peaceful phrases form the narrative: clean linen,
new tomb, myrrh and aloes, in the garden. We know what’s going to happen with
Jesus, and ourselves, because we have read over and over what comes next, but
we have to pay attention and hear this moment. On this Holy Saturday, we are
all cried out, no tears left, but we are not yet in the Resurrection. We are
still at the tomb. Quiet, in shock, not yet flowering the cross, not yet
counting the eggs in our baskets, not yet eating our hot-crossed buns. It is in
this quiet we become prepared for the glorious new life to come.
When I was growing up, our family would visit a graveyard
on our yearly beach vacations. My parents loved the deep shade of the Spanish
Moss and the history the tombstones taught. I saw it as needless time away from
the sand and the ocean, but I was a kid, so I went along. Sweating and swatting
mosquitoes, I read the dates of the babies and children and felt the childhood
fear, I hope nothing happens to me.
Then I would quickly move on, so as not to feel sadness too long. Nodding my
head, Yes, I get the history here, but
wondering, How soon can we leave? I’m
ready to play and have fun again. Ten-year-old reflections of deeper human
questions: How do we regard death? How do
we laugh and celebrate after someone we love dies? How did my relationship with
someone I loved affect the person I am?
As people of Jesus Christ, we must take this brief,
suspended moment under the graveyard oak trees to reflect on the person we
watched die on the cross. If we move too quickly to the celebration of
Resurrection, we might miss, in all the noise, the space for the important
tombstone questions:
Do I know, as much as possible, the person
Jesus was?
How
will the life of Jesus make a difference in my life going forward?
How will I show the love of Jesus in my other
relationships?
How
will I live into the hope of rebirth?
By taking the time to sit with death, to look into the
tomb, we find it is not as scary as we once thought. We learn from what was,
and carry that knowledge into the salty ocean of our futures. Listen, and you
will hear the cicadas sing songs of courage and hope.
Living
Well Through Lent 2021
Copyright
©2021 Scott Stoner.
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Should I continue this blog I have felt to re-establish or should I discontinue?
I have already decided to continue through the Month of May 2020
to follow the Lenten Season.
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