Devotion Booklets for Seasons of the Church Year Lent 2018 | Page 54

Rest in Peace
Saturday, March 31st
Romans 6:3-4
Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder
und rufen dir im Grabe zu:
Ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh,
ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh!
We sit down in tears
and call to you in the grave:
rest in peace, peacefully rest,
rest in peace, peacefully rest! (BWV 244)
Give up defending yourself, it won’t work, it can’t work, and it is just too hard, too exhausting to do.
Instead rest in peace, peacefully rest.
The final chorus in Bach’s monumental St. Matthew’s Passion finds the hearer gathered with the
singers outside the sealed tomb with tears that will only be wiped away by the joy of finding it empty on
Easter morning. Bach’s work is achingly beautiful as the chorus sings- We sit down in tears and call to
you in the grave: rest in peace peacefully rest. Yet mixed with tears is great comfort: Your grave and
headstone shall, for the anxious conscience, be a comfortable pillow and the resting place for the soul.
We know the power of the cross and resurrection on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but we may not
often think of Saturday and our Savior’s time in the belly of the earth. But it is also there that we find
great comfort. Paul connects this yet-to-be emptied grave with our baptisms. All of us who have been
baptized into Christ have died and been buried with him. His death as a payment for sin is our death as
a payment for sin- so the payment for sin has been made. And just as Christ was raised from the dead,
we too have new life now and the promise of eternal life to come. Through our baptism we are linked
to Christ so that where he goes, we go – to the grave and up from it.
Trying to defend yourself from the wages of sin will leave you always fearful and never at peace. But on
this Holy Saturday we know we have a place to rest secure. Bach calls the grave of our Savior a
comfortable pillow and resting place for my soul. By our baptism into Christ it is that.
Give up defending yourself- Ruh sanfte, sanfte ruh. Rest in peace, peacefully rest.
Prayer: O dearest Jesus what you have done by your cross and tomb has created for me a place of peace
and rest for my soul. Continue to calm my troubled heart with the message of sins forgiven and death
defeated. Grant peaceful rest to all this night, that we may arise tomorrow to sing and shout the joy of
your resurrection. Amen.
Activity: Find a recording of Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion and listen to that closing chorus. Marvel at
the beauty and comfort that is ours through our connection to Jesus in baptism.
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