o1mnikent

Four in particular:

First, the sounds: choir, organ, singing, and the like. What made the music more poignant this year was that our church gave up almost all music for Lent: since Ash Wednesday, we haven’t sung much of anything. The absence of music had the benefit of exposing the liturgical logic behind the aesthetics and reminded everyone that all art in worship is never an end in itself. (Also fitting, since our church has two morning worship services with separate styles of music that haven’t coalesced well for the past nine years.)

Second, the silence. There was lots of it: awkward, counter-cultural, did-those-morons (we)-just-crucify-him, what-style-of-worship-is-this? silence. For three entire minutes, I could hear nothing but the sound of my own breathing. I don’t think there’s a more liturgically appropriate day for listening to myself inhale and exhale while contemplating the dire ramifications of a Fall great enough to require God to breathe his last.

Third, during a reading of the Passion narrative in John’s Gospel, I noticed that Joseph of Arimathea isn’t alone when he buries Jesus. From John 19:39: “He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.” That’s an odd anecdote to include, since Nick, the social elite teacher of the law, sneaks a conversation with Jesus in the secrecy of darkness, only to find out that he can’t become born again. Yet there he is, burying the Son of God. Maybe he had a change of heart, or maybe he expresses his skepticism by doing something formative for himself, or maybe he’s trying to make up for his earlier cowardice by removing the alleged king of Jews from the most uncivil and public form of execution. Or maybe John intentionally inserts Nick to point out that his rebirth is only as impossible as Christ’s death.

Fourth, as Jesus was hanging on the cross, the disciples didn’t gather together to figure out how they could apply this to their lives. We shouldn’t either.

From Kevin Corcoran’s blog, fitting Bob Dylan lyrics for Holy Saturday:

Far between sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

In the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden while the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an’ forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burnin’ constantly at stake
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
An’ the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf an’ blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an’ cheated by pursuit
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.