Whether I live or die, I am the Lord’s

AM Psalm 102 • PM Psalm 142, 143
Lam. 2:10-18 • 1 Cor. 10:14-17, 11:27-32 • Mark 14:12-25

A friend sent me a recording of a chant she composed two weeks ago as the impact of the Coronavirus was growing in our consciousness. The chant was set to a paraphrase of Paul’s words from Romans 14. “Whether I live or die, I am the Lord’s.” She sang that phrase over and over, in a simple, plaintive chant. “Whether I live or die, I am the Lord’s.”

I hear the sound of her voice in today’s Maundy Thursday readings. “I lie awake and groan. I wither like the grass. But you, O Lord, endure for ever. O my God do not take me away in the midst of my days. My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out on the ground because of he destruction of my people, because infants and babes faint in the streets of the city.”

A young Jewish rabbi gathers his closest companions around him in darkness. “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” Tonight he will be betrayed, arrested, and tortured. Tomorrow he will die.

All of us will die. Some maybe soon from this terrible virus. Others later. Between now and then, all of us will suffer and groan. God is with us through it all. Christ’s Body and Blood is united with our bodies and our blood. God is with us through it all.

“Whether I live or die, I am the Lord's.” Courage! Take heart!

Written by Lowell Grisham

Lowell Grisham connects with St. Paul’s from home through the Daily Office, Shared Silence, online worship, and Theology on Tap.