Keeping Watch with Jesus

Friday, April 18, 2025

4:58 AM

I have somehow managed to get to the parish on time. My shift at this vigil, which began at the end of the Maundy Thursday service, is scheduled for 5 AM. After a nearly sleepless night spent trying to calm a very protective beagle on high alert over the possum dancing across the backyard fence, it was everything I could do to drag my tired carcass out of bed when the alarm went off at 4 AM. I reheated the Starbucks I had bought the night before, showered, and sped off toward Winter Park.

It is a beautiful morning. Little traffic on the roads yet. I know that will change within the next hour. But for now, it is peaceful, quiet. I drive without the radio, not wishing to be poisoned by the latest news emerging from the global dark night of the soul in which our world currently finds itself before I go in to sit with Jesus. I bid good morning as I pass to my friends, the trees who line the roadway heading into Winter Park, friends who lovingly embrace me each time I travel this way.

 

It is dark when I arrive at St. Richards. The lights announcing the presence of our parish in this neighborhood stand in stark distinction to the blackness of the night around it. I smile. It is a wonderful gift to be a part of such a vibrant, healthy parish. Light in the darkness.

 

As I enter the sanctuary, I see the flickering candles in the Lady Chapel. Even in the dim light I can see that Jesus has not been abandoned this night. There are two other faithful parishioners waiting on me. Their shifts will end soon. For now, I appreciate their faithful silent company.

I enter, reverence the altar where the body and blood of Jesus repose under the veil and sit down.

I had missed last night’s Maundy Thursday service when, after the washing of feet and sharing of the last eucharist before the resurrection, the parish was stripped bare. This is inevitably one of the most moving rites our church engages. There is a visceral loss as all the visual clues that this is a church where Jesus’ presence is palpable, that a faith going back two millennia is the purpose of this place, that the devotion of so many souls, some of which are present with us this night, call this place their home, are all taken away. The bare bones structure which remains is a stark distinction from the daily life of this incredibly vibrant parish.   

The main altar and all the walls are bare. The parish looks so empty this morning. This place that is ordinarily so full of life, of flowers, of art, of music, of words, of people – all absent this morning save this little chapel in the corner of the sanctuary where candles flicker at Mary’s feet.

  

  

These votives are the flickering records of those who said their prayers here after faithfully spending a portion of the night waiting and watching with Jesus -  the infant Jesus his Mother holds, the Jesus who awaits the Temple guards in Gethsemane, the Jesus shrouded in the reserved sacraments on the chapel altar, the Jesus who peers down from the icon above.   

 

Jesus knows what is coming.

 

So does his Mother and his companion, Mary Magdalene, and the Guardian Angels who always surround him. This morning they hover overhead, keeping vigil with Jesus.

  

 

Mary stands to Jesus’ right, watching the gathering from above. MP θϒ (Mater Theus, Mother of G_d) is inscribed around her in this beautiful icon with the title “Holy Protector” above her head in her halo. Jesus will definitely need divine protection this day.

To his left, his companion and confidante, Mary Magdalene, stands in vigil. She will be present when he breathes his last this day. And her presence in the Jesus movement after his death will prove to be what insures its survival to the present time, something for which she and the other women in Jesus’ movement rarely get any credit.

 

 

It is not surprising that Jesus is surrounded by women here. It will be these women among others who follow Jesus down the Via Dolorosa this day. It will be these women who stand at the foot of the cross. It will be these women who come to the tomb to anoint him, a grisly job given the state of Jesus’ tortured body. And it will be these woman who encounter an empty tomb, running back to tell the other disciples what they have seen, only to be discounted by sexist male disciples as spinners of silly tales.

Except, they weren’t. They were the actual witnesses to the resurrection.

  

 

On either side of these three figures the Guardian Angels are present, as they always are with all of us.

There is Gabriel with his horn, divine messenger, herald of important events. Gabriel is often associated with key historical moments like the one about to unfold. It was Gabriel who announced to Mary that her divine child was coming.

Then there is Michael, the chief of the angels and archangels, responsible for the care of God's chosen people in Hebrew tradition. In later Christian tradition, Michael will come to be seen as the angel protecting the faithful from attacks of the devil.

Jesus will need everything they can provide him this day.

The quiet is overwhelming. Even this pitched wooden roof which often pops and cracks in the daily sun and groans in the many storms it has withstood, remains silent.

The spirits of those whose devotions over the years have made this place holy, whose presence I often feel here, sometimes even catching a glimpse of them out of the corner of my vision, some of whose names I remember and faces I can still envision –all maintain silence this morning. They all know what’s coming.

In our culture of constant distraction, none of us well trained consumers do well with silence. That is decidedly true of myself. 

As I try to calm my monkey mind, a Taizé chant inspired by Jesus’ words in the Garden of Gethsemane, begins to fill my head.

“Stay with me

Remain here with me

Watch….and pray.

Watch and pray.”

So I watch and pray. But I am sleepy. I brought coffee with me this morning but I feel a little embarrassed about that. As a rule, I never take beverages into the sanctuary.

But I don’t want to fall asleep on Jesus. His words “Can’t any of you remain awake with me?” echo in my head. Already I am thinking about my waiting bed once safely home.

How spoiled we are.

5:38 AM

Outside the first birds have begun to sing the sun up. I wonder if they sang to Jesus as the sweat of blood rolled down his stricken face. I wonder if he could have even noticed them, despite his deep love of creation which he often illustrated his parables.

Was the overwhelming terror of the coming day all his mind could handle this early morning?

As I focus on the icon of Jesus, I hear in my head the words of St. Richard of Chichester, our patron, which often come to me unbidden in this parish:

Jesus, our Brother,

May we see you more clearly

Love you more dearly,

Follow you more nearly,

This day and every day.

 

What will following Jesus mean this day?

 

6:09 AM

The fatigue of a sleepless night is beginning to catch up with me.

It is my tendency to close my eyes when I meditate. And there are any number of aspects on which to focus that meditation in this deeply spiritual moment. But if I close eyes for very long, I feel the sleep ready to come over me.

 

  

It’s at this moment that I think I understand why the disciples slept. They, too, were exhausted. But they were also overwrought with apprehension and sadness, paralyzed with fear. Their hearts were breaking at the very thought of losing their beloved Jesus, a tragedy they so wished to avoid but knew was inevitable.

No wonder they shut down.

6:20 AM

There were two people here when I entered. One left about 5, her shift completed. The second, a dear man who serves on our vestry, just left. Both stood, crossed themselves, and walked away slowly in silence. I now sit alone.

 

 

I note that the birds have stopped signing. But they have done their job. The sun is beginning to rise. The stained glass window above the altar is beginning to light up.

Jesus’ time is coming. The soldiers, led by Judas his disciple, will arrive momentarily.

What is Jesus thinking? Feeling?

The women who share the icon above the altar seem to stare down at me. What fears run through their minds at this moment?

6:38 AM

As my time to leave approaches, I focus on the angels in the icon before me. These angels will hover round Jesus this day as they do with all of us every day. Sometimes we even catch glimpses of them, hear their wings fluttering around us, overjoyed – relieved -  to know they are present.  I wonder if Jesus could be aware of them as he made his way to Golgotha.

6:58 AM

The parishioner who is to take the 7 AM shift has arrived. We talk briefly, softly, so as not to disturb the serene scene all around us. Then it is time for me to go.

“Keep him company,” I say. “I will,” she replies. And I know she will.

I light my votive, cross myself and depart in silence. As I leave the parish, I am struck by the beauty of the morning sky, lighting up the eastern horizon beyond our memorial garden with its bell we seldom ring. The evening’s moon still lingers overhead even as the rising sun illuminates the beautiful long needled pines that shade our dog park and pet cemetery.  

It has been a good morning. But now comes the hard part, the day we remember one of history’s most brutal executions, knowing that every day in this world the powerless and the vulnerable continue to be crucified. It is a day we so ironically call Good Friday. As my professor in seminary often said, “Qui bono? Good for whom? And at whose expense?”

As I walk to my car, letting the thought and emotions of the past couple of hours wash over me, another Taizé chant runs through my head:

“Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.”  

May my heart and my soul be present with you, Jesus, my Brother, this day as we walk the Via Dolorosa together.

[IMAGES: Photos by the author. All iconography images are the work of resident icon writer and director of the parish icon guild, Sayaka Kamakari.]

 

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 Harry Scott Coverston

 Orlando, Florida

  frharry@cfl.rr.com

 hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

 

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

       © Harry Coverston, 2025

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