“HOLY SATURDAY”
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water…”
– 1 Peter 3:18-20
The three great days happen this week in the world… for the Christian church and the followers of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Easter comes early… just like it should…right after the first full moon (this past Monday) after the first day of Spring. Some will notice. Some won’t care.
Some will say they can’t live without them. Faith matters as we all believe in something. And what are those three great days? Some call it the passion of the Christ or the last days of Jesus on earth… Maundy (from the Latin word ‘mandatum’ or mandate) Thursday… the night Jesus shared the Passover meal with his disciples and what is referred to now at ‘The Last Supper’ or ‘The Lord’s Supper’… only to be followed by Good Friday… the day Jesus died… which in a moment wasn’t good at all for Jesus and his followers but without it… on the third day as the story goes… Easter would have little meaning… as we hear the story of Jesus being raised from the dead… and that makes us wonder… if the Friday Jesus died was good only because of what God did on Easter Sunday… what do we make of that Holy Saturday? How can a day seeming of nothingness offer us any clue to our living in these days?
Let me suggest the day between Good Friday and Easter happens more than just once a year and Holy Saturday is a day of silence and waiting… an in-between-ness like the blank screen at a movie theater… the ‘possibility’ which links together what has been and what is yet to come… and now you understand the impact the many Holy Saturdays of our lives have.
We all know what it is like when something we didn’t expect unfolded abruptly in our lives and then we didn’t know what was going to happen next… creating a state of silence and speechlessness… a sort of hold-your-breath moment… the Holy Saturday of it all… which invites shock, emotional breakdown and a tension most of us would rather deny, ignore or not give any attention to… but if those pauses are anything like the pause from Good Friday to Easter… then we should welcome them like a long lost friend!
As the old hymn suggests…
Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand…
It is this “Easter Eve” that we live over and over and over again and as writer George Steiner reminds us… “There is one particular day in Western history about which neither historical record nor myth nor Scripture make report. It is Saturday. Ours is the long day’s journey of the Saturday… between suffering, aloneness, unutterable waste on the one hand and the dream of liberation, of rebirth on the other.” (Real Presences [1989], p. 231).
What happened on that first Holy Saturday… the day between Jesus’s death and Jesus’ resurrection? He announced his victory over sin, death and the power of evil to all who have lived before… or as I like to say… Jesus descended to dead to give the devil the finger… not the middle one… but the pointer… announcing… There is just ONE God… and I am he… and you are not. Happy Easter… and a blessed Holy Saturday, too!
The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Gigee is a long-time resident of Pearland, having pastored four churches over the last four decades in Texas and Louisiana. Read more following Brian’s blog ‘murmurings’ at https://briangigee.wordpress.com/. Send comments and/or questions to godworks247365@gmail.com.
