To Finish the Phrase | A Prayer

The words press off our lips with ready easy:

“I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontus Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell…”

And here, for now at least, we must cease our repetition. For this is the end of the story for a while. For now, we must sit in the darkness of these dying days.

And are they ever dark…

Here in the dark we sense the utter despair of that space outside the courts, the waiting and longing of those listening for the verdict, the gnashing teeth of false witnesses, the shame of your naked beating.

We, in these dark days, note the suffering of that road; the trees You spoke into existence, we reduced to lumber and forced You to carry it. We nailed You to it and mocked You for not employing that life-speaking voice to come down. We looked at You and couldn’t, so we turned our eyes and kept on mocking. Because we couldn’t bear the sight of such a bloody lamb.

Yes, it is dark here.

And we confess, we need to end the liturgy! We ache to finish the phrase!

Yet, we know. We know there is no newness yet. No newness yet.

And out of this darkness we implore You to be Your sentence-finishing Self. To complete history with newness and life and light.

Do Your Friday-Sunday act again. And in doing so, Easter us as well.

Amen.