Bring us out of the prison of our despair

Bring us out of the prison of our despair

I wonder what it would have been like for those first disciples following the crucifixion of Jesus. They’d had so much hope; hope that Jesus was the promised Messiah, and all the hope and the promise that that gave them for the future — for themselves and for the land. But, for them, their hopes were dashed by the crucifixion. It’s no wonder they went away, tired, broken, and defeated people. They didn’t have what we have. For them, everything ended on Good Friday, because they didn’t have Easter Day.

The despair they felt must have been terrible. It’s hard enough to lose a loved one, but to lose them to such a barbaric and hideous death as crucifixion, to see the one they loved, who they’d invested so much hope in, die in such agony, must have been almost too much to bear. I wonder if they were left with any hope at all, and doubt really that they could have been.

I think the phrase “prison of our despair” is an incredibly apt description of what it feels like to be in the depths of despair. It’s a horrible, dark and lonely place to be. A place where even the sense of being with God, of knowing God, is absent. I’ve been there. I don’t ever want to go back. And I thank God frequently for bringing me through it.

Thank God we do have something the disciples didn’t have that first Good Friday and Holy Saturday; we do have Easter Day.

In the depths of our isolation
we cry to you, Lord God:
give light in our darkness
and bring us out of the prison of our despair;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect for Easter Eve
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council