Holy Saturday (NOT Easter Saturday!)


Today is Holy Saturday, the Great Sabbath, Easter Eve – NOT ‘Easter Saturday’. I think the distinction is important. Today we are focussed on the sense of loss and emptiness after the burial of Jesus. Where is God? must have been the overwhelming thought in the minds of the disciples. (As the disciples who walk with the unrecognized Christ to Emmaus on the first day of the week will say “We had hoped that he was the one.”

In other words, today is a time for acknowledging grief, confusion and doubt. The prevailing secular images of Easter = rabbits, daffodils, chicks, eggs – can suggest that the resurrection was normal, inevitable. It’s what happens in spring. That completely misses the point – that it was unexpected, unnatural and disconcerting (even if it was also a cause for rejoicing and renewed hope.) The women were astonished and fearful to find the tomb empty; Mary Magdalene, like the Emmaus road disciples, failed to recognize the Risen One – because they were not expecting him.

This Holy Week has been unique: difficult for most of us, a time of anxiety for many, a time for sorrow and grief for some. And that is something that we need to identify with this Holy Saturday. The deaths of many good people, some who have left young families, and most whose dying has caused pain and sorrow for friends and colleagues – they need to be recognized. Today we stand with the bereaved, the broken-hearted. We have to share something of their sadness, identify with their bewilderment, and accept their confusion, anger and emptiness.

And that creates a bridge with the feelings of the friends and followers of Jesus on this Great Sabbath. Yes, we know that tomorrow we shall be singing Hallelujah – but we’re not there yet. Good Friday mustn’t be brushed aside too quickly. The Cross reminds us of the cost of sin; it shows us where the selfish love of power, the refusal to listen to God, and the arrogant assumption that we are always in the right leads. All these things separate us from God. The death of Jesus breaks the barrier sin creates, in a way that many of us still find hard to articulate. But we have to feel the pain and the uncertainty of this day of waiting before we can confidently declare the victory.

Otherwise we trivialize sin, and we trivialize the pain and weight of grief. The Eastern Orthodox understanding of this Saturday (like that found in medieval European mystery plays and art) is that today Christ enters Hell, and releases the good people held captive there. Again, it’s hard to grasp what that means, but it reminds us that there are no ‘no-go’ areas for God’s love and light; even what appeared closed can be opened; even the ‘lost’ can be found.

SO yes, we will rejoice and be glad tomorrow. But today we will watch and wait – in hope, certainly, but without being too smug about knowing the answers. Today we will stand with those who weep, who ask Why? who wonder where God has gone. Compassion means ‘suffering with’ another. Tomorrow, by God’s grace, we may pray to be able, in time, to share our hope that suffering and sorrow do not have the last words.

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