Can a Hallelujah be cold and broken?

The past five weeks, I have been missing the Hallelujah. In keeping with the more somber tone of Lent, our liturgy has not allowed for Hallelujahs. But this does not mean that Lent and Holy Week are devoid of Hallelujahs. In fact, the deepest and most beautiful kind of Hallelujah is uttered on Good Friday.

There are many kinds of Hallelujahs: There are the ones that come from sheer joy, that burst from your lips because of gratitude and make you say, “I cannot believe God has done this for me.” And then there are the Hallelujahs that just make you say, “I cannot believe. I cannot believe.” These are the Hallelujahs that challenge our faith, the Hallelujahs that we sometimes have to wrench from our throats, the Hallelujahs that we say through gritted teeth and with clenched fists.

In a song filled with biblical allusions, Leonard Cohen sings about this kind of Hallelujah. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2NEU6Xf7lM for a moving acoustic version.) Cohen tells the story of the boy David, the musician in King Saul’s court who sang Hallelujahs full of mirth. But he also tells of the older David, the sinner who committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband Uriah killed, the “baffled king” who composed a different kind of Hallelujah — one that did not call for dancing, but for lying on the ground to beg for God’s mercy. Cohen tells of Samson and the Hallelujah he sang not when he was defeating the Philistines, but when he was defeated and betrayed by Delilah.

It is a kind of Hallelujah captured most eloquently in the lines, “Maybe there’s a God above/ But all I ever learned from love/ Is how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya/ It’s not a cry that you hear at night/ It’s not somebody who’s seen the light/ It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.”

It is cold because no consolation comes. It is broken because you are not sure you can get up again. It is a cold and it is a broken Hallelujah. But it is still a Hallelujah.

It is not a cry that you hear at night because many times, it is suffered in silence. It is not somebody who has seen the light because many times, it is said while still in darkness. It is a cold and it is a broken Hallelujah. This is the Hallelujah we hear on Good Friday.

When is this Hallelujah uttered? Search and scour the Gospels, and you will not read of Jesus saying “Hallelujah” on the cross. Is there a Hallelujah on Good Friday at all?

Many will say no especially after reading Jesus’ last words on the cross in the Gospel according to Mark (Mk 15:34). They are not “Thanks be to God” nor “Glory to God in the highest” nor even “Amen.” Jesus’ last words are: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” So where is the Hallelujah?

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is a cry of anguish, yes, the last appeal of someone who feels abandoned and deserted, but it is also a prayer. Open your bibles to Psalm 22, and there you will read: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why so far from my call for help, from my cries of anguish? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I have no relief.”

But Psalm 22 does not end there. After airing his grievance, the psalmist continues, “Yet you are holy, O you who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. In you, our fathers trusted; they trusted and you delivered them. To you, they cried out and were delivered; in you, they trusted and were not disappointed.” With these words, the psalmist also pledges: I will trust in you, my God, and I know I will not be disappointed. This is the Hallelujah of Good Friday.

On the cross, in anguish, Jesus prayed Psalm 22. He trusted in God. If death had not overtaken him, I think Jesus would have continued with Psalm 23, that much loved psalm which proclaims, “The Lord is my shepherd.” This is a Hallelujah in spite of pain, a Hallelujah that is not carelessly said but in all conviction prayed. It is the deepest and most beautiful kind of Hallelujah.

An old song croons, “Without the hurt, the heart is hollow” ‑ and not just the heart, but the love and the commitment that follow. “For better and for worse…” This cold and broken Hallelujah is the “worse” that must never be separated from the “better.” And while it is the “better” that builds up love, it is the “worse” that proves it.

“It’s not a cry that you hear at night/ It’s not somebody who’s seen the light/ It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.”

But is such a Hallelujah possible for mere mortals like us? Yes, Jesus was a man when he said it, but he was also God. Can we, weak and doubting men and women, ever say such a Hallelujah? I say yes. It is possible. I have seen it.

I once was asked to give a recollection to MDRTB patients. MDRTB is Multiple Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. It is less publicized than AIDS, but it is far more dangerous.

When I arrived at their special treatment center, the doctors who invited me asked me to where a mask ‑ not just a cheap surgical mask, but a special and very expensive kind of mask designed to filter the tuberculosis bacteria. I objected to wearing this mask. I told the doctors, “How would it look to the patients?” The doctors rebuked me, “It’s not about appearance. It’s about safety. No one is allowed to be in an enclosed space with the patients without a mask.”

Some people would call the MDRTB patients lucky because their treatment is sponsored by the World Health Organization. They receive thousands and thousands of pesos worth of medicines for free. But those who call the MDRTB patients lucky because of this fail to see that if the World Health Organization is pouring so much money into this, it can only be because MDRTB is that dangerous. If there were to be an epidemic of MDRTB, who knows how much of the world’s population would die? This is also why, in many countries, there is a standing hold departure order for MDRTB patients. They are not allowed to ride in planes or leave the country by any other means. Who can call that lucky?

I did not really have time to prepare for the recollection I was to give the MDRTB patients. And so I just used the format of a recollection I had given before. The first part of the recollection asked the patients to enumerate their thank-yous. Right after explaining the activity, I felt I was in trouble. How could MDRTB patients have anything to be thankful for? And yet, I never met a more grateful group of people in my life. They thanked God for MDRTB because it brought them back to what was important. It brought them back to their families. It brought them back to God. And from their lips I heard the Hallelujah.

How could they still utter such a word? It was not easy for them, but they trusted that they were in God’s hands. They trusted that God knew what he was doing. They trusted in a better ending even if they could still not see it.

A cold and broken Hallelujah — is such a Hallelujah truly possible? Again, I say yes. It is possible because when we find ourselves not just carrying our crosses but nailed to them, we will not find ourselves alone. Someone else will be there with his cold and his broken Hallelujah. This is what the cross means: “There is no night so dark that he is not there before us. There is no pit so deep that he is not deeper still.”

Three months and one day ago, on Christmas day, we proclaimed a Lord who is Emmanuel, a God-who-is-with-us. This Holy Week, we find out what that really means. Our God is someone who knows and understands what it feels to be cold ‑ as many of us have felt. Our God is someone who knows and understands what it feels to be broken — as many of us have been. And our God is someone who, cold and broken, stays with us and shares with us his cold and his broken Hallelujah.

Is such a Hallelujah possible? I say yes. Just look at the cross. In pain, in anguish, it is still possible to trust because our faith tells us our God is trustworthy. In pain, in anguish, it is still possible to trust because our faith tells us, we are not alone.