I have put together an audio file of readings and music, offered in praise of God and for the benefit of any who might find in it a blessing on this day of ongoing isolation due to the pandemic. The readings and music are taken from audio files that are in the public domain.
Easter Readings 2020
Prelude: Concerto for 2 Trumpets in D Major, by Johann Molter, MWV 6.30. From a European Archive, at MusOpen.
…the god-man suffers too, with patience. Evil and death can no longer be entirely imputed to him since he suffers and dies. The night on Golgotha is so important in the history of man only because, in its shadows, the divinity ostensibly abandoned its traditional privilege, and lived through to the end, despair included, the agony of death. Thus is explained the “Lama sabachthani” and the frightful doubt of Christ in agony
Albert Camus, Essais (Gallimard, 1965), p. 444. Translated and quoted by Bruce Ward in “Prometheus or Cain? Albert Camus’s Account of the Western Quest for Justice,” Faith and Philosophy (April 1991): 213.
(My hat is tipped to Timothy Keller for bringing this quotation to my attention).
“I feel like I shouldn’t have given up anything for Lent”, a patient said to me the other day. In the midst of a global pandemic, Lent seems to have taken on a new life. As state and local bodies take drastic actions to curb the transmission of COVID-19, we all suddenly find ourselves in a state of government enforced deprivation and fasting.
Many of us are all but confined to our homes. Travel is restricted, and spring vacations canceled. Schools are closed. Churches are closed. Restaurants, theaters, bowling alleys, and museums are all closed. In grocery stores, masked customers flit about nervously looking for supplies that have sold out, such as eggs or toilet paper. Some people are lucky enough to have work that is deemed “essential”, while others are furloughed and applying for unemployment. The social fabric seems to be ripping apart. Accustomed to a land of plenty, we Americans now find ourselves struggling with privations that are alien to us.
Meanwhile, by coincidence, a large segment of faithful Christians are observing Lent. Lent was conceived as a season of fasting, discipline, and self-sacrifice leading up to Christianity’s holiest and most joyful commemoration, namely Easter. The point of the fasting is to get past ourselves and our own desires, and to intensify our realization of our need for God and his work in our lives.
Whether voluntary or involuntary, this time of deprivation can either be a miserable mess, or it can be something we can see through eyes of faith as a kind of blessing. The meaning of Lent, and of the tribulations brought on by the COVID-19 Pandemic, can best be summarized in a statement passed along to me by a friend: “When we come to the end of ourselves, we see the beginning of God’s faithfulness.”
In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, many churches have wrestled with measures to keep parishioners safe. That churches provide no immunity from the virus is well illustrated by the case of a Georgian churchgoer named Clay Bentley, who sang in a 100 member choir at his church on March 1 and soon afterward developed symptoms of coughing and fever. He was hospitalized with pneumonia and tested positive for the coronavirus. Bentley told the Daily Mail that he’s heard that seven other people who were also in the choir are now in hospitals.
As the case load of infected people in the U.S. rises, state governors are calling for restrictions on all public gatherings. Churches are heeding the call. Unprecedented photos of empty pews and barren meeting houses have floated through the ether.
Most churches have canceled all services, and moved to online formats such as live-streaming, Zoom, and webcasts. Members have stayed in touch by connecting on Facebook, or by meeting only in small groups. Some churches have persisted in holding services, with modifications such as forgoing a communion cup.
Borrowing from restaurants, some churches have offered “drive through” sacraments. One example is the St. Andrew Apostle School in Silver Spring, Maryland, as reported by Catholic Philly. Father Leary is quoted:
“There’s a very beautiful paradox taking place. There’s a contradiction in people’s lives in the fact that they’re starting to realize what they don’t have. The absence is creating a longing for presence. What God is allowing is this divine encounter of love. He’s turning the hearts and eyes of the people back to Him.”
Others are similarly optimistic. Roxie Floyd of the Wilson Temple in Raleigh, NC, is quoted by Elizabeth Dias of the New York Times: “Jim Crow didn’t stop our church, the 60s didn’t stop our church, race riots didn’t stop our church, lynching didn’t stop our church,” she said. “It gives you a strength and hardening of character to weather storms, that we will persevere through the worst times and come out on the other side stronger.”
A longstanding tradition dating to the early church is to gather at the anniversary of the death of a martyr. Today we remember the witness of a remarkable man from the 20th century.
Seventy-five years ago today, Eric Liddell breathed his last, succumbing to a brain tumor while in Japanese custody at a prisoner of war camp in occupied China. “It’s complete surrender,” he is said to have uttered, referring to his Christian missionary work.
Liddel is best known to most people via Ian Charleson’s portrayal in the classic movie “Chariots of Fire”. This academy award winning drama covers an early part of his life when he had decided to run competitively, ultimately representing Britain in the Olympics. “I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure” he tells his disapproving sister in the film. (His sister’s objection to Liddell’s running is one of several points of creative license—she actually supported his athletic career).
After years of training, Liddell was selected to represent Britain in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. Learning that the heats for the 100 meter dash were to be held on Sunday, he refused to run as he felt that this would dishonor the Sabbath. He instead ran and won the 400 meter dash.
In 1925, Liddell returned to China, where he had been born, and took up the role of a missionary. He taught at an Anglo-Chinese school for wealthy Chinese students, was superintendent of the Sunday School at Union Church in Tianjin, and built the Minyuan Stadium, modeled after the Chelsea’s football grounds.
In 1932, following his ordination to ministry, he married Florence Mackenzie, a daughter of Canadian missionaries. The couple had three daughters. As World War 2 broke out, a pregnant Florence left China for Canada. Eric then took a position at a rural mission station in Xiaozhang, alongside his brother, a physician.
When the Japanese took over, Liddell went back to Tianjin for a time. In 1943 he was sent to the Weihsien internment camp along with other missionaries and foreigners. He became an organizer of prisoners and a respected leader among them. Children called him “Uncle Eric”. In 1945, he became ill, and was found to have a brain tumor. He died February 21, and was buried beneath a small wooden cross in the garden behind the Japanese officers’ quarters.
Langdon Gilkey, who would later become a theologian, said of Liddell: “Often in an evening I would see him bent over a chessboard or a model boat, or directing some sort of square dance – absorbed, weary and interested, pouring all of himself into this effort to capture the imagination of these penned-up youths. He was overflowing with good humour and love for life, and with enthusiasm and charm. It is rare indeed that a person has the good fortune to meet a saint, but he came as close to it as anyone I have ever known.”
We beseech thee, Almighty God, to purify our consciences by thy daily visitation, that when thy Son our Lord cometh he may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
You wake up, and find that you are sitting in a leather chair in a strange room that looks a bit like a physician’s office. A pleasant bespectacled man tells you that you have died, and are now beginning your afterlife. “Welcome to The Good Place,” he beams. You soon emerge into a sunny, pleasant “neighborhood” filled with saintly seeming people milling about and eating frozen yogurt. Yet not all is as it seems. For one thing, you clearly know that you don’t belong. You were a terrible person in life.
This is the opening premise of the entertaining and thought provoking show, “The Good Place”. Somehow I missed this on NBC and am now binge-watching reruns on a streaming service. I will confine my remarks to the first season, but will directly discuss the shocking twist of the season finale.
Eleanor, a self-absorbed, semi-alcoholic woman whose life’s work was selling a fake product, finds herself dead and consigned to “The Good Place”, but she knows that she doesn’t deserve to be there. A mistake has caused her to switch places with another who shared her name. She decides to try to earn her place anyway and begins ethics lessons with a former ethics professor named Chidi. Meanwhile she has a troubled and catty relationship with her neighbor, Tahani, a tall glamorous former philanthropist, who seems too good to be true, and has some subtle narcissistic traits. After doing the right thing in the midst of numerous ethical dilemmas, Eleanor finally realizes something shocking: “This is actually the Bad Place, isn’t it?”
The show has been compared with the play “No Exit” by existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, and this is apt. The first season unfolds much like the famous scenario in Sartre’s book. “No Exit” describes a version of Hell. Sartre, who was famous for saying, “Hell is other people” drafted a play in which three main characters are trapped together in a pleasant room. They are dead, and have been consigned to Hell. They have been assigned to spend eternity together. It dawns on them that they are to be each other’s tormentors:
INEZ: Wait! You’ll see how simple it is. Childishly simple. Obviously there aren’t any physical torments—you agree, don’t you? And yet we’re in hell. And no one else will come here. We’ll stay in this room together, the three of us, for ever and ever. . . . In short, there’s someone absent here, the official tortur
GARCIN [sotto voce]: I’d noticed that.
INEZ: It’s obvious what they’re after—an economy of man power—or devil-power, if you prefer. The same idea as in the cafeteria, where customers serve themselves.
ESTELLE: What ever do you mean?
INEZ: I mean that each of us will act as torturer of the two others.
The three characters proceed to do just that, until finally Estelle cracks:
“Open the door! Open, blast you! I’ll endure anything, your red-hot tongs and molten lead, your racks and prongs and garrotes—all your fiendish gadgets, everything that burns and flays and tears—I’ll put up with any torture you impose. Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.”
These parables accord with a more modern version of Hell, in which psychology replaces fire and brimstone as a metaphor for its torments. I think of C.S. Lewis, who wrote “It’s not a question of God ‘sending’ us to Hell. In each of us there is something growing up which will of itself be Hell unless it is nipped in the bud.”
Some have objected to this idea, as it underplays the justice and retribution aspects of Divine punishment. In Lewis’ view, and that of “The Good Place”, Hell is as much a self-inflicted torment as it is divinely appointed punishment.
However, does it need to be “either / or”? Might it not rather be both?
Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let thy bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be honor and glory, world without end. Amen.
