Holy Week 2022

How are you doing this Holy Week during the second year of the global pandemic?

I am thinking about the magnitude of the loss of life and the vast numbers of grieving people as we approach the highest holy day of the Christian faith. 

What does resurrection mean in our current context? What is the good news in the midst of this national and global tragedy?

We are approaching or have already surpassed the loss of 1 million people in the United States, and well over six million in the world. The death rate in our country has surpassed that of any other large, wealthy nation — especially during the recent Omicron surge.

As I process the enormity of this sorrow, I am touched by an article published this week by Ed Yong, a staff writer at The Atlantic who covers science, and whose writing during the pandemic I have come to appreciate for its insight, empathy and depth. His title grips my heart: The Final Pandemic Betrayal, with the subtitle: Millions of people are still mourning loved ones lost to COVID, their grief intensified, prolonged, and even denied by the politics of the pandemic.

Yong tells the story of a woman named Lucy who caught the virus in March of 2020 while working as a volunteer at the polls for California’s 2020 election. She brought it home to several family members. After her husband, David, caught the virus, he was hospitalized and died two weeks later. Lucy said goodbye to him over Skype. It was agonizing. The hospital never returned his personal items, including his wedding ring.  Then, David’s sister, who was infected at the same time, died after two months in the hospital. In a matter of weeks, Lucy’s mother-in-law, who had initially recovered from the virus, also died, after having lost two of her children to Covid-19. 

Young writes of Lucy:

She never got to comfort David before he died, never got to mourn him in the company of friends, and never escaped the constant reminders of the disease that killed him.

Yong points out that each person who has died has left an average of nine close relatives who are bereaved.

Many of the people Yong interviewed “felt that their loved ones immediately became statistics - that their individual tragedy was subsumed by the pandemic’s enormity, and that people were constantly discussing every aspect of the crisis except for grief.” 

Politicians dismissing the severity of the virus and mocking the wearing of masks have not helped. 

One person told Yong:

Imagine if you lost someone to cancer and half the country was making fun of cancer all the time. Imagine that it’s just everywhere, every day and it doesn't go away.

These dynamics have silenced many grievers, deepening their already intense isolation.

During the pandemic, I found myself tracking the numbers of the dead. 

When we hit the milestone of 100k, it seemed too much to grasp. I wrote about it here.

Then it was 500K.

Then I stopped counting.

In Yong’s words:

That number - the sum of a million individual tragedies - is almost too large to grasp.

I feel this. It has, at times, been too much to hold in my heart and keep at top of mind. The truth is harsh and hard to take. 

In the past two years COVID has become the third most common cause of death in the U.S. This makes it the third leading cause of grief as well. I think about this when I go out in public. I say a prayer for strangers, knowing that there are those around me who carry the burden of pandemic grief.

Early on, several of my close family members got COVID. Later, more family members and friends were infected. Members of congregations I had served passed away from Covid, and I sat and grieved, alone, at home, after receiving the news.

Last month, I led the memorial service for my sister-in-law, Pam, the wife of my youngest brother, David. Pam died in September, suddenly and unexpectedly. Her first grandchild had just been born and she died without having held this precious infant in her arms. Pam was 59 years old.

As people of faith, we know the power of gathering to share tears and stories, comfort one another and find hope in the sacred words of scripture.  During the pandemic many have been robbed of such rituals of gathering to grieve and remember and give thanks for the life of our loved one.

As I prepared my remarks for Pam’s service, I struggled. Her death was unexpected, a shock, and a complete surprise. The pandemic created an extended delay in confirming her cause of death. For reasons complicated by Covid, it was six months before we gathered to mourn together. Our grief came with sudden impact and a sense of disbelief. How could this happen and why, why God?

At the core of Christian faith is the truth that death does not have the final word.

This pandemic does not have the final word. The final word is love, the love that Jesus demonstrated on the cross and the love that triumphed over death.

It is the love that propels us into the world with compassion. 

As the death toll of unthinkable size confronts us, as Covid grievers experience isolation and dismissal, may we open our hearts to the grief around us, acknowledge the loss, and remember: death does not have the final word.

The final word is love. The love of Maundy Thursday washing feet. The love of the Good Friday cross. The love of Sunday morning’s empty tomb. The love of the resurrected Lord whose body now is ours. That is, we are the body of Christ, sent into a hurting world to share this enormous, expansive love.

It is love that will remain. 

I Corinthians 13:13: and now these three remain: faith, hope and love.