Holding Vigil for a Groaning World (and Our Own Hearts)

To bear witness to those who sleep in death (1 Thess. 4:13) from a cruel virus, we keep watch and wait for the Lord. While the outside world groans, we hold space for it and our own suffering within. 

“Doesn’t it feel like the whole world is groaning?” My wife, KJ, asked me this as we drove up Mt. Evans a month ago, hoping to breathe some fresh (and safe!) air and take in the views while our hearts felt heavy. We were coming to terms with the pandemic, that the world had seemingly changed overnight, and our own lives with it. It felt like too much to hold inside, even as we stood outside our car overlooking the beautiful expanse of Colorado. That’s when the idea—or invitation—of vigil arose in us. 

One definition describes vigil as: an act of staying awake, especially at night, in order to be with a person who is very sick or dying, or to make a protest, or to pray. We started holding vigil in this way a few weeks ago. We ordered some nice candles and light them in our living room most nights before bed. We do it for 10-15 minutes, usually with some hymns or instrumental music.

It is hard for me to hold space for real people suffering when I’m looking at epidemiology models (and boy do I!). Numbers quickly become numb-ing. It’s easy to think, “Oh good! We had less than 2000 deaths today.” It’s not as easy for me to remember the thousands in mourning, or my friend’s family, who didn’t get to say goodbye to a loved one lost to Covid-19. How about the frontline workers forced to absorb so much trauma right now, for which years or decades of PTSD await? Or the thousands thrust into deeper poverty and domestic abuse? The magnitude of suffering is so great that it’s elusive. 

We’re all carrying grief in different forms. We hurt physically and emotionally from various threads and losses in our stories. A prolonged global crisis doesn’t subdue these; it funnels us to revisit them, if my experience is any indication. We hold vigil, then, to let light hold our darkness. We “set a table in the presence of our enemy,” as my wife writes, “where we…welcome the God who still holds this world together.” Christians (and certainly Anglicans!) are no stranger to liturgy and symbol. Lighting candles and holding vigil may be one way we can practice presence during Covid-19. Whatever the practice, I encourage you to find ways to protest the paralyzing hum of distractions, the disembodied drumbeat of data, and the gospel according to “fast and forward” that steals us away from love.  

The voice of evil would have us deflect a tragedy from penetrating our hearts and reduce it to a callous “issue” devoured by politics. “Out of sight (and body), out of mind.” The voice of Jesus would invite us to engage our senses, to be moved by the suffering around us and inside of us, and to open our own hearts to healing unattended wounds. 

God, I confess a spirit of pragmatism that devises future outcomes and dishonors present pain: others’ and my own. I confess, also, a propensity in my heart to look away, to numb out, to encounter suffering and do nothing in response—a dangerous spiritual inertia. Lord, have mercy. 

On the night before he died, Jesus asked his disciples to hold vigil on his behalf and in solidarity with his suffering. He said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me” (Mt. 26:38). And again: “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (v. 41). He later found them asleep. I believe one of the temptations in the face of suffering is to “fall asleep” to it. Where might we notice this temptation today? What could it look like to “stay awake” with Jesus and protest the darkness during this season? 

It might look like lighting candles in a room before bed. It might look like regular journaling to engage our own hearts and petition for others. I hear there is morning prayer offered somewhere on YouTube! Or attentive prayer walks. Or a few minutes of silent listening in God’s presence. Connect deeply and routinely with a friend (or small group) with whom you can acknowledge your losses. It might be all these things as a liturgy for life, born in a pandemic. It won’t look like bypassing anyone’s pain—yours included—with anxious silver linings or platitudes. Sara Bartley’s Lenten message from Ecclesiastes feels all the more prophetic: “Let us go into the house of mourning…” Christians do not sow in tears (Ps. 126:5) because we are masochists but because wisdom asks it of us. We face the reality of the world head on even as we look to the gospel.  

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. As we hold space for suffering, we remember that we share in His. As we keep watch in the time of Covid-19, we encounter Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col. 1:27), and we long for His return with great anticipation.

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,

And in his word I put my hope. 

I wait for the Lord

More than watchmen wait for the morning,

More than watchmen wait for the morning. 

- Ps. 130:5-6

- Ryan Ramsey