Dear Lord Jesus,
We approach you in a time of division and extremes, paradox and impossibility. We live in a world of total connectivity, yet are isolated in our homes, half of us unbearably lonely, the other half desperate for respite from our cell mates. The world has been driven to ground by a virus, and half of us are scared to death, the other half angry about the overreaction; half of us are excited to reimagine ourselves in the adventure of lockdown, the other half despairing as business, study and relationships suffer yet another knockdown punch.
And so we come to you, O Prince of Peace, and find you sword in hand, casting fire on the earth, and with it, division. We want to be soothed by you, and hear you whisper to us, ‘peace, peace,’ but there is no peace. Instead, we see you stern and asking us, why do we not know how to interpret the present time?
Lord Jesus,
We know before you can be our saviour, we must first hear you as our accuser and judge, and be willing to listen to hard facts: we are fragile and mortal beings in a huge world that we tipped into disorder. Our selfishness, our pride, our angry greed are the butterfly wings that have beaten the whirlwind we are now reaping. It is our rebellion against you that started this war, yet we sit around and bleat for peace like we have no idea who bought up all the toilet paper, or who is threatening to nurses on duty, or who beats their children, or murders their wives — we do. The misery and loneliness and hostility around us are all ours, entirely human. And you are entirely right to be disgusted by it — it is entirely fair that you stand in judgment over the wreck we have made of ourselves.
And yet we come come again and ask you for peace, for where else have we to go? We come and ask for peace, but we realise we are not praying to a fluffy God. You are not some senile Santa who thinks deep down we are all nice girls and boys. No, you are the holy judge who hung in our place and felt in your body every atom of the weight of our badness. You know us, and by your mercy, we know ourselves a little. And so we come urgently to settle things with you, our dear accuser. We realise at last that every day is judgment day for somebody, and there is no time to waste in seeking peace with the prosecution.
We thank you for yet another opportunity to rest on your grace, be sheltered by your mercy, and see that all our debts have been paid in you. We thank you that now we are entirely safe in you, the chaos and fire upon the world are for us only the rigours of purification, and the terrors of mortality are only the bracing call to awake to ourselves and life in you.
All around us, the refrain is that corona has changed the world, and we will never be the same again. Perhaps. We have had plagues before, and many times people have been sure that the world was about to end. And perhaps it is. We know it will eventually, but we already belong to a kingdom that will never end, and know that no virus will ever come close to matching the upheaval and reversal of reality of you, our creator, dying to bring us salvation. And so we live in eager expectation, confident that even judgment day has been turned upside down, and we the accused will be welcomed home as dearly loved friends.
Until that day, we pray that nothing will keep us from giving you the glory,
Amen.
— prayed in the morning at St Mark’s Chapel, University of New England, on Sunday 17 May 2020.
Rowan McAuley 