Holy Week Terror: Pause, Pray, and Wait
We waved the palms.
We shouted “hosanna.”
Yet the headlines shout to us, alerting us to a reality too common.
Breaking news of terror.
Destructive bombs.
Innocent life lost.
Confusion and chaos; heroes; and fear-filled waiting.
Once again.
We pause. We pray. We wait.
What does this “holy” week say to the pain and grief of terror?
What could this “holy” week say to the chaos, confusion, and “the enemy”?
What might we need to remember, in this “holy” week as faithful people called to love?
Questions continue to come, but where are the answers?
The answers come:
Pause.
…
And Pray.
…
And wait on the Lord.
And so we pause in the days in between, searching and remembering, hoping, and trusting.
We wait to gather at the table and journey to the cross.
And yet the horror of crucifixion, the depths of Jesus’ sacrifice speak to us anew.
But, it’s not yet Friday.
It’s Tuesday.
And we stand with the people of Brussels in shock and horror.
We don’t know “why?” and don’t understand.
We pause. Not in emptiness. But in hopefulness.
We pray for the Lord’s wisdom, guidance, and peace.
We wait.
We learn. Not of answers to our aching question, “why?”
We learn of martyrs, terrorists, ordinary people, travelers, workers, families, the faithful, the searching. Men, women, and children.
Their humanity and my humanity and our fragility appear sandwiched as a news headline shocking us forward.
But it’s Wednesday, now.
And still
We pause.
We pray.
We wait on the Lord.
In the midst of our ordinary coming and going, we gather and scatter by cars, trains, and planes.
We are taken to a new place, a familiar place, the next place.
Yet here we are, Lord.
We pause.
We pray.
We wait.
On Thursday, we pause, pray, and wait.
We wait for your peace to silence bombs. And you remind us to be the peace that silences bombs.
We long for your peace to calm our weary nerves. And you help us calm the weary nerves of another.
We search for answers to “Why, Lord?” And the chorus cries out: pause. pray. wait.
Make our waiting an active movement toward you and your ways, Lord.
Call us forward to who you desire us to be.
Equip us, empower us, help us, to show a different way that is filled with hope and peace.
Even as we pause, pray, and wait.
Because in you Lord, we are trusting the table where we will gather will be a place of unity.
As we await Friday, we look for the cross to embrace us with sacrificial love.
In the silence of Saturday, grant us again the space to pause, pray, and wait.
In the rhythm of this Holy Week, we are disrupted by terror, but trust your forward call, even as we pause, and pray, and wait on you Lord, and the promise of your resurrection hope.
Amen.
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