Do you hear that? No, not the neighbors taking the opportunity of the finally spring like weather to edge their sidewalks. Listen for a moment. Listen deeper. Listen with your faith and not your ears. Listen and you will hear all of creation holding its breath. Leaning forward in anticipation and wonder.
The gospels are strangely silent on what happened on Holy Saturday. After the incredible detail of that Good Friday, there are no words left to describe Saturday: the Sabbath day in between. The reason why there was a delay. The laws prevented the work of tending to the dead, the preparing of the body for burial. A forced pause in the terrifying events of the past few days. A cloud of fear and doubt surrounding them as they wondered what might be next.
Did they huddle together, taking comfort from their shared grief? Did they run to familiar places and reach out for hands that were curiously, painfully empty? Or did they avoid looking at the despair in each other’s eyes, afraid that alongside the grief and the pain would be accusation and disappointment; or were they simply afraid that seeing another who had given themselves to him would bring the hurt and memories rushing back and unleash another flood of tears, despite the feeling that there were no tears left?
The Sabbath belongs to God. That was what the law said, that is what their practice taught them. You can’t help but wonder, however, whether those who had lost their purpose for living even bothered to go through the motions. Did they sit in the pews while the familiar words bounced off their numb consciousness, barely aware of their own bodies as they stood and sat, as they knelt and repeated the words that were as familiar to them as their own names? Or did they discover a growing resentment building up inside of them as they watched their fellow worshipers singing praise as though the world had not come to an end, as though this was just another day to acknowledge the goodness of God? Did they want to shout out “how can we sing the Lord’s song in this foreign land?”
Or did they know, deep down, that their anger wasn’t at the blind worshipers, not at their neighbors and family members who were simply doing what they always had done without a second thought? Did they reach inside far enough to realize that their disappointment, their frustration, their anger was at God? Did they compose psalms in their minds that they didn’t dare bring to their lips? That God who had seemed so tantalizingly close whenever he spoke, who seemed to be flinging wide the doors to this wondrous kingdom that was so much a part of him as if anyone and everyone could find their way there, now seemed so far away as to be a dream you can’t quite remember upon waking. God had let this beautiful vision of Someday slip through the divine fingers with careless abandon.
So maybe they hid, afraid of Roman power so excruciatingly evident on Friday, wary of Jewish authorities who, having tasted blood, just might be hungry for more, and even let down by God, the one he called Father, who had abandoned them with a brutal indifference. Maybe that is why we don’t know any details of that Holy Saturday, no one ever had the strength to talk about what they did or thought or felt on that day. And each was painfully alone in their private hell.
I guess I shouldn’t say we don’t know any details of that day. We know one detail. We have one thread in the tapestry of Holy Saturday. Not much to go on, I admit, not enough to give us a sense that we know the whole story. But maybe enough to color the day with a little more light then we might have imagined at first glance.
Luke 24:1-12 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
Did you see it, right there in the first verse? “Taking the spices they had prepared.” Whatever else happened on Holy Saturday, at some point someone stopped and took the time to gather together the items they would need for the ritual task of caring for the dead. Maybe it was an attempt to stop thinking and slip into rote responses, maybe it was a way of focusing away from eternal implications and onto mundane responsibilities. Maybe it was just easier, taking inventory, setting aside cloth and spices, remembering the prayers over the dead that had to be spoken as each item was applied. Maybe it allowed them to return to a simpler time, as they remembered assisting their mothers when they cared for old Aunt Judith who had lived a long and happy life, with mother teaching them the how and the why and the blessing it was to be able to serve.
That’s the thread of hope I see in Holy Saturday. In the midst of despair and suffering, it was the call to service that rose up in them, or some of them anyway. It was service that got them to dry their tears enough to think outside themselves for a moment. To get their feet moving again, to distract themselves from their grief by the busyness of their hands.
Maybe they remembered his words, about giving yourself away to find yourself, about Samaritans who bind up wounds, about loving your neighbor. Maybe that is what sustained them through the darkness of Holy Saturday. That thread of service born out of love. Maybe that was what gave them a sense of purpose when their hearts were broken. Maybe that was what gave them strength to put one foot in front of another on this interminable day.
Maybe that is what brought them back to the place where hope was reborn. “But,” says Luke, “but on the first day of the week...” What a grand and glorious reversal. “On the first day of the week” everything changed. The certainty of death was shattered with the breaking of dawn on that first day of the week. The despair of denial was destroyed with the rolling away of a stone too big to move.
And the announcement, the angelic announcement that was indeed good news of a great joy, told them in no uncertain terms that Holy Saturday was over. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” they said with a chuckle behind glowing hands. You can almost see this Laurel and Hardy pair falling over themselves, giddy with the announcement they had to give. “He is not here!” they proclaimed with a heavenly guffaw. And holding their sides with delight, they sent the women off with a simple task.
It is our task too, our Easter task. “Remember,” they said. Remember what he said. Remember, by telling the story to one another and the world. Remember by walking as he walked, by loving as he loved, by serving. Remember. Even on Holy Saturday, because they come with painful regularity, even on Holy Saturday, remember.
Then they remembered. Happy Easter.
Shalom,
Derek
The gospels are strangely silent on what happened on Holy Saturday. After the incredible detail of that Good Friday, there are no words left to describe Saturday: the Sabbath day in between. The reason why there was a delay. The laws prevented the work of tending to the dead, the preparing of the body for burial. A forced pause in the terrifying events of the past few days. A cloud of fear and doubt surrounding them as they wondered what might be next.
Did they huddle together, taking comfort from their shared grief? Did they run to familiar places and reach out for hands that were curiously, painfully empty? Or did they avoid looking at the despair in each other’s eyes, afraid that alongside the grief and the pain would be accusation and disappointment; or were they simply afraid that seeing another who had given themselves to him would bring the hurt and memories rushing back and unleash another flood of tears, despite the feeling that there were no tears left?
The Sabbath belongs to God. That was what the law said, that is what their practice taught them. You can’t help but wonder, however, whether those who had lost their purpose for living even bothered to go through the motions. Did they sit in the pews while the familiar words bounced off their numb consciousness, barely aware of their own bodies as they stood and sat, as they knelt and repeated the words that were as familiar to them as their own names? Or did they discover a growing resentment building up inside of them as they watched their fellow worshipers singing praise as though the world had not come to an end, as though this was just another day to acknowledge the goodness of God? Did they want to shout out “how can we sing the Lord’s song in this foreign land?”
Or did they know, deep down, that their anger wasn’t at the blind worshipers, not at their neighbors and family members who were simply doing what they always had done without a second thought? Did they reach inside far enough to realize that their disappointment, their frustration, their anger was at God? Did they compose psalms in their minds that they didn’t dare bring to their lips? That God who had seemed so tantalizingly close whenever he spoke, who seemed to be flinging wide the doors to this wondrous kingdom that was so much a part of him as if anyone and everyone could find their way there, now seemed so far away as to be a dream you can’t quite remember upon waking. God had let this beautiful vision of Someday slip through the divine fingers with careless abandon.
So maybe they hid, afraid of Roman power so excruciatingly evident on Friday, wary of Jewish authorities who, having tasted blood, just might be hungry for more, and even let down by God, the one he called Father, who had abandoned them with a brutal indifference. Maybe that is why we don’t know any details of that Holy Saturday, no one ever had the strength to talk about what they did or thought or felt on that day. And each was painfully alone in their private hell.
I guess I shouldn’t say we don’t know any details of that day. We know one detail. We have one thread in the tapestry of Holy Saturday. Not much to go on, I admit, not enough to give us a sense that we know the whole story. But maybe enough to color the day with a little more light then we might have imagined at first glance.
Luke 24:1-12 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
Did you see it, right there in the first verse? “Taking the spices they had prepared.” Whatever else happened on Holy Saturday, at some point someone stopped and took the time to gather together the items they would need for the ritual task of caring for the dead. Maybe it was an attempt to stop thinking and slip into rote responses, maybe it was a way of focusing away from eternal implications and onto mundane responsibilities. Maybe it was just easier, taking inventory, setting aside cloth and spices, remembering the prayers over the dead that had to be spoken as each item was applied. Maybe it allowed them to return to a simpler time, as they remembered assisting their mothers when they cared for old Aunt Judith who had lived a long and happy life, with mother teaching them the how and the why and the blessing it was to be able to serve.
That’s the thread of hope I see in Holy Saturday. In the midst of despair and suffering, it was the call to service that rose up in them, or some of them anyway. It was service that got them to dry their tears enough to think outside themselves for a moment. To get their feet moving again, to distract themselves from their grief by the busyness of their hands.
Maybe they remembered his words, about giving yourself away to find yourself, about Samaritans who bind up wounds, about loving your neighbor. Maybe that is what sustained them through the darkness of Holy Saturday. That thread of service born out of love. Maybe that was what gave them a sense of purpose when their hearts were broken. Maybe that was what gave them strength to put one foot in front of another on this interminable day.
Maybe that is what brought them back to the place where hope was reborn. “But,” says Luke, “but on the first day of the week...” What a grand and glorious reversal. “On the first day of the week” everything changed. The certainty of death was shattered with the breaking of dawn on that first day of the week. The despair of denial was destroyed with the rolling away of a stone too big to move.
And the announcement, the angelic announcement that was indeed good news of a great joy, told them in no uncertain terms that Holy Saturday was over. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” they said with a chuckle behind glowing hands. You can almost see this Laurel and Hardy pair falling over themselves, giddy with the announcement they had to give. “He is not here!” they proclaimed with a heavenly guffaw. And holding their sides with delight, they sent the women off with a simple task.
It is our task too, our Easter task. “Remember,” they said. Remember what he said. Remember, by telling the story to one another and the world. Remember by walking as he walked, by loving as he loved, by serving. Remember. Even on Holy Saturday, because they come with painful regularity, even on Holy Saturday, remember.
Then they remembered. Happy Easter.
Shalom,
Derek
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