The past few weeks have been filled with life events, both in our congregational life and in my personal life. So I find myself doing what I do when my life gets busy. I turn to music and these past few days I have been listening to a song by Leonard Cohen. “Hallelujah.” There are a couple of verses are about David and Bathsheba, but mostly the song is about love. Sometimes it is just the chorus that I notice: “every breath was hallelujah.” I thought about people I know who have died saying they had no regrets, and I want it to be the same for me but then I think of many things in my life that I regret and I wonder how could it be? Then I listen some more and hear: “your faith was strong but you needed truth” and “the beauty of the moonlight overthrew you” and “I used to live alone before I knew You.” and “love is a broken Hallelujah” and I think Oh, Okay it’s not just about not having regrets, it’s something else. A while ago I attended an event for Survivors of Suicide. Survivors in this sense are not those that have attempted but those who mourn the death of someone by suicide. There was a whole lot of pain present in that place; we were all bonded by an experience that has caused a lot of suffering. Perhaps we were there so we could acknowledge what lies behind our common experience: that we were there because we love, we love the person who died: “Life is a broken Hallelujah.” Love is Hallelujah. Knowing that there is nothing left that can be done and it is at a moment like this, when I know that if I did not love I would not grieve; it is in this moment that I know that grief is part of the cost of loving, Hallelujah! So Hallelujah! is shorthand poetry. Hallelujah! is a poem, a prayer. Hallelujah! is praise and worship but it is also humbling and exciting at the same time. Hallelujah! is saying goodbye to a close and dear one. Hallelujah! is acknowledging fear and trembling, suffering and loss. Hallelujah is acknowledging courage and joy, healing and forgiveness, compassion and service. Hallelujah! is God’s longing for us. It is shalom. Hallelujah! is “unto us a child is born,” all that is weightless and all that is too difficult to bear, every laugh, every tear. It is David dancing naked before his God, it is Martin Luther King standing in a pool of light on a stage the night before he died saying “I have seen the promised land, I might not get there with you.” Hallelujah! is Job “even though he slay me, will I serve him.” Hallelujah! is Amen, make it so. Hallelujah! is St Francis of Assisi “Go and preach the Gospel, use words if you must.” Hallelujah! is Samuel saying: “here I am.” Hallelujah! is our own ability to respond to God. Hallelujah! is Emmanuel, the Messiah is born, Jesus forsaken , resurrection, the Last Supper, the Lord’s prayer, Psalm 23, it is Judas and betrayal, it is Love, the Word, the Bible, the Way, faith, belief, grace, hope, gifts of the spirit, love of neighbor, death, grief, and Joyful, Joyful we adore you . It is all that is noisy, bitter and disconcerting; all that is quiet, sweet and dreamlike, it is life itself. Hallelujah! May God’s peace fill you always and all ways. Greg
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:40:56 +0000