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Where is the Joy?

"A Funeral" by Anne Archer (1891)



More and more I think that Lent is not just an annual season, it should be the defining attitude of the contemporary western church. In the slow trudge through the latter part of Lent the light relief of Laetare/Refreshment Sunday, better known as Mothering Sunday, is behind us, and we've got to get past Good Friday/Holy Saturday before the dawn begins to break... Personally, I'm just about holding on...

Where is the joy?

I persistently feel I am presiding
At prolonged preparations
for a long anticipated funeral.

There are reasons for celebration
But they lie long in the past...
Tales told at a tea-fuelled wake
With a wistful sigh.

Meanwhile the heirs squabble,
Overwhelmed by their grief,
Fearful of a semi-orphaned future
And the costs of the undertaking.

We are empty grave people,
But we want to avoid the trauma
Of putting on the grave clothes
And rolling the tombstone into place.

Where are the signs 
Of our sure and certain 
hope of resurrection?

I weep.

Selah




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