Life and death flow mingled
Prayers at Morning Prayer
Bangor Cathedral, 5 April 2018
Psalm 114, Exodus 13:1–16, 1 Corinthians 15:29–34
A tiny church I visited long ago,
high on a cliff-top in the south of France;
this small building commanding the valley.
And around its foundations,
exposed by centuries of wind and rain
whipping away the soil, the earth,
curved niches carved into the solid rock,
each the size of a tiny manger;
evidence that once,
to this place,
parents had brought their babies,
still-born or dead before baptism,
their folk belief telling them that,
when the priest in this church baptised their precious bundle,
just for a moment the child was alive again,
just long enough to be born again,
to be given a name
and to be known by name
in the heaven above this high place
where the tiny body would stay behind.
The Corinthians believed something similar.
Sisters, brothers, sons, mothers
would be baptised for a loved one who had died
without knowing birth in water and the spirit;
baptised in the hope
that love would still conquer death.
The last of the Plagues of Egypt,
the one that worked,
the one that set the people free,
killed all the first-born of the Egyptians;
such unimaginable grief;
and in thanksgiving the Israelites
dedicated to God
all their first-born whom death had joyfully set free.
Even in these days of Easter joy
you thrust in our faces the cruelty, pain and loss
buried in this earth,
the seed of hope and new life.
You insistently remind us that life and death flow mingled,
down and up,
mourning met with hope and love,
no hope and love without mourning.
And so we place on our hearts today
those people and places
whipped by the cruelty, pain and loss of the world this morning;
those who suffer because of war, displacement and poverty;
those unwell in body and mind;
those who mourn and who are lonely.
We place on our hearts
those whipped by the cruelty, pain and loss of the world,
giving thanks for all that brings hope,
for all who bring hope,
for the promise of hope
that is met and known
in bread and wine,
in brother, sister, friend,
in the Body of Christ in our midst,
wounded and mourning,
living and hoping,
glorified and loving.
Amen.
