Good Friday Thoughts During the Pandemic

Good Friday service is usually one of the most bittersweet and memorable liturgies of the year. This year, though, because of stay-at-home orders, we all experienced it through a phone line, rather than over the course of 6 hours inside our church. It reminded me, once again, how deeply sensory our experience of communal worship is.

Today, I missed feeling the church carpet, stained with wax from candles we didn’t take good enough care of, beneath our knees and knuckles as we do prostrations, usually bumping into the legs of the people near us on our way back up.

I missed hearing the chorus of earnest—mostly elder, female—voices during the funeral songs, which, I'm sure, God waits for just as earnestly each year.

I missed smelling the incense from the censor, which then permeates every fabric for days to come because of how many hours we burn it today.

I missed tasting the bittergourd-grapefruit concoction the uncles make each year, passed around at the end of service for us to partake in the bitter drink given to Jesus on the Cross.

I missed seeing the Cross, clothed in black for the last three weeks, draped in white today at the burial, laid near the altar for us to kiss, and leave, until Sunday.