Day 30: "We Who Celebrate with Awe"

DAY 30

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK FIVE: MONDAY 13 APRIL 2020

“We Who Celebrate with Awe”

Grant we pray, Almighty God, that we who celebrate with awe the Paschal feast may be found worthy to attain to everlasting joys, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

- Prayer for Monday in Easter Week, The Book of Common Prayer

It is a memorable scene: the corridor lined with doctors and nurses, applauding, cheering as a single patient who has survived the coronavirus is wheeled to the front door of the hospital to be greeted by tearful family members who have been barred from each other’s presence throughout their nightmarish journey through the unfamiliar terrain of this pandemic. If one word could encapsulate it all it would, I think, be “CELEBRATION!”

Planning a celebration might seem an inappropriate thing to do when viewing the cavernous rooms filled with coffins in Italy or hearing the daily death count in New York City, yet just last week as Christians we twice held a celebration, on Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday: we call it “The Celebration of The Lord’s Supper.” But this Paschal feast that we ‘celebrate with awe’ is more somber than celebrative, is it not?

Our “Celebration of the Lord’s Supper” looks forward to “The Marriage Supper of the Lamb” described in Revelation 19:6-10, that will be anything but constrained, as all of history from creation to the cross culminate in Jesus and His bride, His church, being together forever, a wedding festivity unlike any you’ve ever attended: “’Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready…Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.’”  And we will be there!

Reflective question: In what ways can you celebrate family, friends and faith during this time?

Reflective scripture: Philippians 4:4 – “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”

Reflective hymn: “We’re Gonna Party” – Chris Tomlin (1972-        )

We’re gonna party, I can feel it down inside. Party, I was dead, now I’m alive.

Gonna outshout the heavens now, gonna sing loud and outshout the sea,

gonna celebrate the life I’ve found, I’m found, I’m found.

I was blind but now I see, I was lost but He rescued me,

He saved the day and He set me free, set me free, now I’m free.