On the Prospect of Not Celebrating Easter this Year

On the Prospect of Not Celebrating Easter this Year

Will Christ not rise again

This year

For us?

 

Is he in fact

Still

Dying among us?

In those succumbed

To COVID-19.

 

Or is he

Still

Dead?

Is he in the tomb

With us?

Quarantined from life

Before rising

Infected and decaying

With the virulence

Of toxins?

Of needy-greedy panic

Grabs at shopping shelves?

As panicked voices

Constantly ask questions

What about this?

Or that?

What now?

What now indeed.

 

Will there be no people

As the body of Christ

Holding their candles

Light in the Lord?

Signs that Christ

Has risen

And shines

In us and

Among us?

 

Or are we consigned

To private piety,

In our own place,

So foreign

To genuine faith

That seeks to hold us together

As parts of the body

Of the Risen Lord?

What of this distant,

Isolated,

Seclusion?

Dying alone

In the dark

And waiting

In the tomb?

 

When will we rise?

When shall we hear?

Magdalene’s cry:

“I have seen

The Lord!

And heard his voice!

 

 

Simon C.J. Falk 21 March 2020

 

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Cloth Chatter – Easter Triduum Weaving

 

Cloth Chatter – Easter Triduum Weaving

More reflections for Christians beginning the weeks of Easter.

(i)

His undergarment was seamless, so they cast lots for it (John 19:23-24)

I was fashioned to fit

My warp and weft

Wound in ways

To clothe the person.

The cloth maketh for the man.

I held his outer robes

And moved

With his healing hands.

I was a one-person piece

And they cast lots

For me

Like a commodity on the market.

 

(ii)

The veil in the Temple was torn in two (Luke 23:45)

I hung upon the threshold

Like a garment gathering greatness

A robe for the holiest place

Where God’s word reached

Human words

And was kept.

I held the holy in

And halted the passage

Of peoples coming into this sanctuary space.

At the Saviour’s final breath

I broke

In two

Both adorning the sanctuary

And opening

Like two arms

To welcome people into the holy.

No more a barrier

For the Saviour’s passing over

And now an entry point

For human

And divine.

 

(iii)

Saw the linen cloths on the ground, and also the cloth that had been over his head (John 20:6-7)

We held the battered body

One that had fashioned furniture

Fished with fisher disciples

Healed the sick

Broken bread and

Passed the cup.

We lined the lifeless body

In the cool, dark tomb

Holding the oils and spices

Upon the fragile flesh.

Now discarded

We are

On the ground

Back down to earth

Our role complete

We are now

A notion towards a mystery:

“Where is the Lord?”

 

(iv)

Do not cling to me (John 20:17)

I felt her touch

Urgent and inquisitive

Wondering

“Is it true?”

“Is it you, O Lord?”

As I held him in his new life

There was a quickening

So new

He was very alive

And love

Emanated from he

To her

And from her

As she ran

To share.

 

 

Simon C.J. Falk 20 April 2019

 

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