by Rev. Eric Folkerth

“Media vita in morte sumus”

This is an ancient expression from 9th Century Christian spirituality. It speaks of a great mystery in all of life; a great mystery we cannot “solve,” but only experience.

The English translation is: “In the midst of life, we are in death.”

Today, we find these ancient words in our United Methodist “Service of Committal.”

Maybe you’ve heard them before, then? I might bet that if you have, you may have not fully noticed. Because they come, in that service, at a very emotionally wrought time.

With earth upturned —the black soil dug six feet deep, with families deep in the grief— I almost always start a graveside service with these ancient words:

“In the midst of life, we are in death.
from whom can we seek help?
Our help is in the name of the Lord
who made heaven and earth.”

Such is the emotion of that particular moment that it’s always struck me *any* human words —even words that speak great and timeless truth— feel hollow and not up to the task of helping those deep in personal grief.

So, let me remind you of them again now, as we move through “Holy Week 2021.”

Friends, we have lived these words, in horrific ways, over the past year. We are still living them. Even as the hope of vaccines brings us great joy, the continuing loss of family and friends grieve us.

“In the midst of life, we are in death…”

Jesus’ death on a cross at the hands of the Roman “Powers That Be” is horrific precisely because it was so unnecessary. He did not have to die. That was not the “plan.” But we human beings can be deeply cruel and callous. We cause death, time and time again, through what we do, and through what we leave undone.

In our day, we cannot help but be deeply troubled by this same kind of “unnecessary death.”

Troubling to *me* this week is the news that potentially 100s of thousands of human beings died needlessly of the pandemic. That is a chilling and horrific statistic.

Add to this, testimony this week in the George Floyd trial, which seems to chillingly detail just how unnecessary his death was too.

The full story of Holy Week is the story of “dying and rising.” It’s a story of how God rejects our rejection of God, through the resurrection of Jesus; and how through this act, God reminds us that resurrection is baked in to the fabric of the universe itself.

There is a *big* “however” that we must say here….We must not use this truth to excuse our inaction. Too many of we humans do this. Too many of us seem to revel in the callous phrase “Just kill them all, and let God sort them out.”

What a hopeless, despairing point of view.

That is not what God wants or desires of us.

God’s hope for humanity is always for a realm of love, compassion, and justice….where all God’s children are included and honored. That means, how we treat others matters *deeply* because, as Jesus said, how we treat others is actually how we treat God.

So, friends, on this Maundy Thursday, let us not rush off to Easter too soon.

I invite you to sit with the horror of what we human beings have wrought, through the unnecessary death of Jesus, and through all the horrifically unnecessary deaths of this past year too.

Every day of your life, it has been true that “in the midst of life, we are in death.” It’s felt existentially true this year. So….where is our hope, then?

Our hope is in that baked-in truth about “the reality of reality.” That New Life might be born in the ashes of all the death we cause, and that we might answer the call to be those who are God’s “hands and feet" as we seek to embody it in our world.

As it says in the liturgy, there is only one place to place our hope:

“Our help is in the name of the Lord
who made heaven and earth.”

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