The Altar of Our Hearts

Holy Saturday, March 31, 2018

Jim Melnyk: “The Altar of Our Hearts”

Those of you who were with me in Sunday School last week heard and read the quote from theologian and author Howard Thurman entitled, “The Inward Sea.”  The passage will be in this month’s newsletter as well.

Thurman writes, “There is in every person an inward sea, and in that sea there is an island, and on that island there is an altar, and standing guard before that altar is the ‘angel with the flaming sword.’ Nothing can get by that angel to be placed on that altar unless it has the mark of your inner authority.  Nothing passes ‘the angel with the flaming sword’ to be placed upon your altar unless it be a part of ‘the fluid grace of your consent.’ This is your crucial link with the Eternal.”

Holy Saturday challenges us to consider both our inward sea and altar that stands on the island in the midst of the sea – what I choose to call the altar of our hearts.  At the dawning of this day we are called to imagine our Lord’s body at rest in the depths of a stone-cold tomb.  We cannot forget how we came to this place.  Maundy Thursday beginning with “This is my body, this is my blood,” and ending with “I do not know the man!”  Good Friday with all of its violence and fear – with darkened skies and thunderous earthquakes – with tears of anguish and with heart-crushing sorrow.  Oh, how our inward seas tossed with mountainous waves and pounding surf!  Cries of “Crucify! Crucify!”  Cries of “My God, my God – why have you forsaken me?” and the almost-whispered, “It is finished!”  A tempest-tossed inward sea that threatened to pull the island of our hearts to the bottom of its depths.

Were it not for Thurman’s “angel with the flaming sword” guarding the altar of our hearts we would surely despair beyond measure.  Were it not for that fiery angel we might surely give up hope. 

Morning comes and those who most loved Jesus – those who followed him throughout his ministry and either fled Thursday night or stood watch near the cross on Friday – they gather, as do we, to wait.  Their inward seas now becalmed.  But it’s not a comfortable calm by any means – rather one that comes after having cried until one can cry no more.

And yet the angel with the flaming sword stands guard over our hearts even as it stood guard over Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalen, Peter, James, John, and so many others.  “Nothing can get by that angel to be placed upon the…altar [of their hearts – of our hearts] unless it has the mark of [their – of our –] inner authority.”  

Author Frederick Buechner has written, “Anxiety and fear are what we know best…. Wars and rumors of wars…. We have heard so much tragic news that when the news is good we cannot hear it” (Synthesis CE, 4/1/2018). The temptation is to let the world’s anxiety and fear, hostility and violence, anger and hypocrisy, find their way to our altars - to let the 24-7 newsfeeds overwhelm our lives.  The angel stands guard, but we all too often find ways around that flaming sword.

This Holy Saturday, as is the case every day of our lives, we get to decide what will gain "the fluid grace of our consent." We can find ways of putting peace and hope on the altars of our hearts.  We can find ways of placing compassion and mercy, ways of placing forgiveness, grace and love, on the altar.  We can do that because we know the rest of the story - because knowingly, we wait in quiet anticipation this morning. 

And yet, as busy as we may let our lives get later today, we do so with the hope of resurrection echoing in the deepest places of our hearts. 

This day, and every day, we get to choose what we will help slip by the angel who stands guard over the altar of our hearts.  We get to choose life – life for ourselves and life for our world.  But for the moment, on this quiet Holy Saturday, we wait.