Iwasillen Bala Sitinna Lyrics by Bro. Charles Thomas

Wait, and keep watch, patiently,
until he comes again
do not weep in your distress
give it room, and keep watch
enduring the pains of birth,
then laughing in triumph over them,
prepare yourself for a new age,
enter into a new birth

Humanity was destroyed, grown heavy with sin,
falsehood laughed aloud, reigning as king that day
setting you upon the cross and killing you, it rested content
no one who has ever “won” like that has been found in this world

The heart that fell weeping, wounded and torn open,
could not bear it, alone on that day
bearing a lifeless body, the Mother of God stands unshaken
out of the destruction, a new world is formed and is born

This is a hymn of patient hope, written for the hardest waiting of all, the stretch between suffering and resurrection. Its counsel is gentle but firm: “wait, and keep watch, patiently, until he comes again; do not weep in your distress.” And it gives that waiting a hopeful shape with a beautiful image, the pain of childbirth: “enduring the pains of birth, then laughing in triumph over them, prepare yourself for a new age, enter into a new birth.” Present suffering, it promises, is labour pains before something new is born.

The middle verse looks unflinchingly at the darkest hour, the crucifixion, and reads it as evil’s hollow victory. “Falsehood laughed aloud, reigning as king that day; setting you upon the cross and killing you, it rested content.” And then it delivers the verdict of faith on that apparent triumph: “no one who has ever ‘won’ like that has been found in this world.” A victory won by killing the innocent is no victory at all, its seeming triumph is really its defeat.

The final verse is Good Friday and Easter held together in a single breath. It pictures the sorrow of the cross, hearts “wounded and torn open,” and, movingly, “the Mother of God stands unshaken,” Mary holding the lifeless body of her son, the image of the Pietà, steadfast even in unbearable grief. And out of exactly that ruin comes the promise the whole hymn has been waiting for: “out of the destruction, a new world is formed and is born.” What the listener is left with is the deep Christian hope that death is not the end but a birth, that even the cross, evil’s proudest moment, becomes the womb of resurrection, and that those who wait patiently will see a new world rise from the wreckage of the old.