O Life, how can You die? Or abide in a grave? For You destroy the Kingdom of death, O Lord, and You raise the dead of Hade’s realm.
Give me this stranger who from His youth has wandered like a stranger.
Give me this stranger whom His kinsmen killed in hatred like a stranger.
Give me this stranger concerning whom I am in perplexity, seeing the strangeness of His death.
Give me this dead one, treated unjustly by all, persecuted by His own brethren.
Give me this dead one, struck by His own servants, condemned by those He freed from servitude.
Give me this dead one, sold and betrayed by a cherished disciple.
Give me this stranger whom His mother saw dead and cried out “O my Son and God.”
I trust in Your Resurrection, even if my entrails are wounded and my heart stricken as I see You as a corpse.
O my Son and my God, show Your Resurrection.
From the libretto of John Tavener's Lamentations and Praises