For Covid Grief

Welcome

We gather to hear the good news of Jesus and to seek a ritual to hold onto while grieving apart. May this liturgy come alongside you in the ambiguous loss you are feeling: trips, celebrations, milestones, personal freedoms, and gatherings postponed or cancelled, and also the specific suffering that finds you: the illness or death of a loved one, the loss of employment, and dramatic changes to your own social, mental, or physical health. It all matters - to God and to this community. And so we share this liturgy to honor God and bear one another. 

Thanksgiving for Baptism

We begin by giving thanks for baptism. God uses ordinary water and a sacred promise to turn our human story into a “Yes, and . . .”.  Yes, we are mortal, we experience suffering and die. And we are so fiercely loved by a God who calls us precious, forgiven, and worthy despite every effort to define human value according to earthly measures. This grace is thanks to Jesus, who came to earth to accomplish everything we cannot, who gives us everything we need to be our real selves, together with God.

Creating God, you made heaven and earth. You formed us from the dust of the earth and called us very good. Your breath gave us life. We glorify your creation.

Saving God, you were born to live with and like us. You have felt our suffering and joy so that we are never alone. You died so that we, too, can live a new and eternal life. We praise your salvation.

Sustaining God, you stir up our faith and comfort our sorrow. You gather your church for the sake of hope that carries us forward one day at a time. We worship your abiding presence.

To you, O God, be glory and honor forever. Amen.

Prayer

God of Life, your Holy Spirit has gathered us together to remember our grief and name our loss before you now. (Brief silence.) Be present in our sorrow with holy compassion and good care that help us mourn. Give us faith to trust that death does not have the last word, and help us hang on to the hope we have in Jesus, who is resurrection and life for all people. Amen.

Readings included literary and scripture selections by members of the congregation. Familiar hymns of comfort, healing, and Easter were offered by a pianist and cantor throughout the liturgy.

Intercessions

Gracious God, you knit us together as a faithful community and are present in our rituals, reminding us that we do not bear these heavy burdens all alone. Help us hold space for every emotion in this season of memory and mourning. Abide in our hope, our doubts, and our fears with strength and peace that come from heaven.

We pray for your whole church across time and space, for faith communities of every tradition and nation, for humankind, creation, and cosmos, every living thing. Unite us in our call to reveal your goodness and a care for our neighbors. May your generous blessings flow through our uncertain and weary lives. 

We pray for those who lack economic security, those who feel distant from your care, those who doubt their sacred worth, and those who ache because their pain great. Come beside your people and their sorrow with love that is patient and kind, with peace that comforts and mends.

We pray for those who feel the weight of death deeply, for those tending to the logistics of death, for those remembering loved ones who have gone before us. Their life revealed your image and brought light to the lives of many. We have seen in their friendship your compassion, in their weakness your strength, in their humility your glory, in their integrity your goodness, in their faithfulness glimpses of your eternal love.

Strengthen our faith so that we, too, may trust that nothing can separate us from your love in Christ Jesus, that your life will one day be ours. Amen.

Blessing

“For Entrusting (Apart)”

This isolation has been eerie and idle, and, 

I’ll say it - wrong - since we know what to do, 

or we did. Our hands and lips still tingle 

with rituals to comfort. We are the living 

and long to gather, lest we forget how to live.

We know how to practice grief and good news, 

stories over lunch, tears that spill graveside; 

the routine of commending and committing, 

standing together in mystery to trust God 

with everything we cannot see. Not yet.

The day will come when we again mourn 

in familiar proximity and hold the sad frame 

of another. Until then, cling to these promises 

filling the space between, reminding the living

we do not weather this sorrow all alone or in vain.

There is a story unfolding, ancient and new, 

of God’s people reborn to their own humanity 

and entrusting their rest to the One 

who is making a way where there was no way.

And we rise to commend, commit, and testify 

until it is the only thing left to know.

Benediction

May the peace of God, 

which passes all human understanding, 

keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, 

today and always. Amen. 

You can find a video of this original liturgy on Bethlehem Lutheran Church Twin Cities’ You Tube Channel.