“Abide with Me” (ELW 629, Verse 5)
Devotion
Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes,
shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;
heav'n's morning breaks,
and earth's vain shadows flee;
in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
When this hymn is sung at a funeral I always pray the organist will throw open the swell chest and hit the button for the zimbelstern when we arrive at this final verse. It is the gospel writ large and then shrunk down to this powerful image of a cross held up before the closing of an eye. None of us knows how long he or she has on this earth, but we have a God who knows what it means to live and to die. We trust that the God who raised Jesus from the dead speaks that same word of life to us. God is with us in life, God is with us in death. Thanks be to God!
Prayer
God, abide with me this day and in the days to come. Whether they number many or few, I know that you walk three days ahead of me through death into eternal life. May the light of that life break into my heart even today. Amen.