These Holy Hours

Let us stay awhile in this Holy Week, let us see what we have. All around is night, the darkness overwhelms, let us stay and watch.

Why, what has happened? This, this has happened: the Son of God has been blasphemed, the Word mocked, the Fountain broken and spilt, the Vine and all His lilies strangled with thorns, the Shepherd surrounded by hungering wolves, the Light of the world darkened, the Prince of Life slain.

This is the day when all things gather towards their end. While sinners triumph and kill their King, the Father’s wrath is poured out on Him from above; He drains it to the dregs. The great redeeming work is done, the evil of man laid on the perfect One, God and sinners reconciled – but reconciled in death. Truly did He cry: “It is finished.” What else can there be?

It is in these holy hours, when all the strings of salvation have been drawn and twisted into a single thread, when there is no answer but only the great riddle of righteous God and sinful man brought together, it is here that we stay and we sing.

It is, as Samuel Crossman wrote, a song of love unknown^[1]. Not a song void of hope – the single thread remains – but a song which lingers in the strange darkness, keeping watch. And there, keeping watch, we see that for which we long: love.

For where can we find love in this cursed world? Must it not be in the deepest pit of grief and pain? But what must we see in that pit? Can love be dark and empty, cold and weak, so that it merely sinks into the mire? No, we must see Love Himself, He who made the lame to run, our Friend of friends, whose home is Heaven, He who is full of joy and peace, dwelling with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit from eternity past – when we see Him, and Him in our place in Golgotha’s darkness, O then have we seen Love.

Stay and watch for these few hours which remain. The morning shall come, the knot unravel, but while the string is twisted in sorrow, stay and see Love.

[1] My Song is Love Unknown, Samuel Crossman (1623-83)

The Second Discourseman