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rivkaI just got home from the Good Friday service at my church.
Because Unitarian-Universalism is a non-creedal religion, the various people in one church may follow very different religious paths. Sometimes this leads to services full of vague, colorless religious generalities. Sometimes it leads to an unthinking mishmash of religious concepts without much thought given to how they come together.
Sometimes it leads to services of great power, drawing on deep underlying themes which connect different religions. Tonight was one of those times.
The liturgy combined a Service of Tenebrae, which is the Christian liturgy marking the passion and death of Christ, with a Service for Yom Hashoah, which remembers the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. It reached back to the story of suffering and liberation that is Passover, and forward to our present-day fears of the world's growing darkness. It wove together themes of oppression, bitter suffering, the endless struggle for truth and liberation, and the courage of those who stand up for good in the face of great evil. We closed with Communion, taken "in memory of Jesus and of all those who have died - for the sake of justice, for the sake of truth, for the sake of love, and sometimes for the sake of nothing at all. In their deaths, we remember our human oneness."
It was painfully beautiful, intensely moving, deeply powerful. I feel... sanctified.
I wanted to share some passages from the opening and closing portions of the liturgy.
Opening words:
Blessed is the flame that burns in the heart's secret places.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling the flame.
Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor's sake.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling the flame.
On this Good Friday evening when Christians everywhere remember the crucifixion of Jesus, in this season of Passover, when Jews everywhere remember the exodus of their ancestors from captivity in Egypt, we also look ahead to Yom Hashoah, when Christians and Jews and other peoples around the world remember the Holocaust.
[...] We remember, too, the enslavement and the genocide of other peoples, especially in this century, in so many places. We remember, and as human beings, we recognize our own frightening potential for evil as well as for good.
Tonight, in this two-part service of Tenebrae, which means "shadows," we mourn the crucifixion of Jesus, who called on us to end the ageless cycle of human cruelty, who embodied the love of a God whom he knew as a god of love. We mourn those who died in the Holocaust. We remember, and we mourn, as we enter for this hour into the shadow side of our lives.
Closing words:
As we spoke the seven last words of Jesus, we ended the first part of our service in silence and in darkness. For Christians, there is the hope of Easter, that, as Jesus rose on the third day, there is for all of us, after the suffering and death of Good Friday, the possibility of resurrection and new life.
As we spoke the words of unknown Jews, hiding in a cellar in Cologne, we ended the second part of our service in silence, yet in the light of hope, our candles burning. For Jews, there is the faith of Passover, that in the face of plagues and slavery and whatever may come, through it all, if we remember, the Jewish people will somehow survive, perhaps only a remnant, but a faithful remnant - even in the face of the Holocaust.
"I believe in God, even when God is silent." However we understand God, whether we find our own stories in the Christian or the Jewish tradition, or elsewhere, may we depart this place in faith - in God, in love, or simply in the assurance that "we are here" - together.
Because Unitarian-Universalism is a non-creedal religion, the various people in one church may follow very different religious paths. Sometimes this leads to services full of vague, colorless religious generalities. Sometimes it leads to an unthinking mishmash of religious concepts without much thought given to how they come together.
Sometimes it leads to services of great power, drawing on deep underlying themes which connect different religions. Tonight was one of those times.
The liturgy combined a Service of Tenebrae, which is the Christian liturgy marking the passion and death of Christ, with a Service for Yom Hashoah, which remembers the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. It reached back to the story of suffering and liberation that is Passover, and forward to our present-day fears of the world's growing darkness. It wove together themes of oppression, bitter suffering, the endless struggle for truth and liberation, and the courage of those who stand up for good in the face of great evil. We closed with Communion, taken "in memory of Jesus and of all those who have died - for the sake of justice, for the sake of truth, for the sake of love, and sometimes for the sake of nothing at all. In their deaths, we remember our human oneness."
It was painfully beautiful, intensely moving, deeply powerful. I feel... sanctified.
I wanted to share some passages from the opening and closing portions of the liturgy.
Opening words:
Blessed is the flame that burns in the heart's secret places.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling the flame.
Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor's sake.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling the flame.
On this Good Friday evening when Christians everywhere remember the crucifixion of Jesus, in this season of Passover, when Jews everywhere remember the exodus of their ancestors from captivity in Egypt, we also look ahead to Yom Hashoah, when Christians and Jews and other peoples around the world remember the Holocaust.
[...] We remember, too, the enslavement and the genocide of other peoples, especially in this century, in so many places. We remember, and as human beings, we recognize our own frightening potential for evil as well as for good.
Tonight, in this two-part service of Tenebrae, which means "shadows," we mourn the crucifixion of Jesus, who called on us to end the ageless cycle of human cruelty, who embodied the love of a God whom he knew as a god of love. We mourn those who died in the Holocaust. We remember, and we mourn, as we enter for this hour into the shadow side of our lives.
Closing words:
As we spoke the seven last words of Jesus, we ended the first part of our service in silence and in darkness. For Christians, there is the hope of Easter, that, as Jesus rose on the third day, there is for all of us, after the suffering and death of Good Friday, the possibility of resurrection and new life.
As we spoke the words of unknown Jews, hiding in a cellar in Cologne, we ended the second part of our service in silence, yet in the light of hope, our candles burning. For Jews, there is the faith of Passover, that in the face of plagues and slavery and whatever may come, through it all, if we remember, the Jewish people will somehow survive, perhaps only a remnant, but a faithful remnant - even in the face of the Holocaust.
"I believe in God, even when God is silent." However we understand God, whether we find our own stories in the Christian or the Jewish tradition, or elsewhere, may we depart this place in faith - in God, in love, or simply in the assurance that "we are here" - together.
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Date: 2004-04-09 07:12 pm (UTC)Transcript here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/africa/jan-june04/genocide_04-09-04.html