Easter Saturday
This year has been a hard one, hasn't it? Already we've struggled under its weight, only four months in. We needed Easter this year. We needed the hope of Sunday. I know, because I've heard it from so many of my friends this weekend. "It's Friday, but Sunday is COMING!"
We cling to the promise, the hope, the victory of Sunday. And so we should. So much of what shapes our lives rests on what happened on that day. We need Easter Sunday.
But this year I've realized we need Easter Saturday, too.
We make much of Good Friday, of Christ's suffering, of the moment when all seemed lost. We linger in the darkness, trying hard to imagine how hopeless it must have felt. But always there's a sliver of light, a reminder that Friday is only the beginning. Sunday comes next.
This year I wonder how it must have been to wake up on Saturday morning. Did Jesus' loved ones open their eyes, stretch, listen to the song of the bird outside of the window? Did they, for a moment, forget what had happened? Did it rush over them suddenly, like a crashing wave, a desperate darkness? As the memory flooded back, did they feel hopeless?
The world had been turned upside down. All they thought impossible had happened. Every promise seemed broken. Every hope was dashed. Jesus was dead. The unthinkable had become reality.
There was fear, too. What would happen next? Would they be sought out? Rounded up and killed? Betrayed like Jesus had been? Afraid, they hid themselves away in rooms. Isolated. Alone.
Saturday--that first Easter Saturday--held only a faint glimmer that there could be a Sunday. It was dark. It was desperate. It was almost beyond hope.
But there was more to Saturday. Because Saturday was the day of Sabbath, the day of rest. The day when all the world stopped, for just a moment, to breathe and replenish. Saturday was to be the weekly reminder of the seeds sowed deep in the earth, awaiting spring. Unseen above the soil, it was the place where roots grew deep, where the hard work was done. A moment both of rest and of preparation. Easter Saturday was the long pause before life burst forth.
And so we find ourselves, friends, in the middle of Easter Saturday. The unthinkable has happened, the world turned upside down. We are isolated, alone, afraid. But we are also in a season of Sabbath, a global quieting, a long pause. And so we wait.
Actually, much of our life is lived in Easter Saturdays. Not on the scale we're living now, of course. But many of our days will be Saturdays: the spaces between the moment of crisis and the hope of victory. They will be days when we are forced to close our doors, to pause. We will live in the tension between dread and fear, hope and promise. We know Sunday is coming. But we must live Saturday, too.
We need each of the days of Easter: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. As painful as it is, let each day do its work in your heart. Let it prepare you for the bursting forth of spring. Sunday is coming, friends, but don't forget to live Saturday, too. There is richness in the pain, in the unknown, in the waiting, in the Sabbath. There is a reason Jesus didn't return on Saturday. We needed each day; we need it still. Take the moment to pause, linger in the unknown, sink your roots deep into the soil. When spring comes--when Easter Sunday dawns--you will be ready for it. Because of the work of Easter Saturday.
We cling to the promise, the hope, the victory of Sunday. And so we should. So much of what shapes our lives rests on what happened on that day. We need Easter Sunday.
But this year I've realized we need Easter Saturday, too.
We make much of Good Friday, of Christ's suffering, of the moment when all seemed lost. We linger in the darkness, trying hard to imagine how hopeless it must have felt. But always there's a sliver of light, a reminder that Friday is only the beginning. Sunday comes next.
This year I wonder how it must have been to wake up on Saturday morning. Did Jesus' loved ones open their eyes, stretch, listen to the song of the bird outside of the window? Did they, for a moment, forget what had happened? Did it rush over them suddenly, like a crashing wave, a desperate darkness? As the memory flooded back, did they feel hopeless?
The world had been turned upside down. All they thought impossible had happened. Every promise seemed broken. Every hope was dashed. Jesus was dead. The unthinkable had become reality.
There was fear, too. What would happen next? Would they be sought out? Rounded up and killed? Betrayed like Jesus had been? Afraid, they hid themselves away in rooms. Isolated. Alone.
Saturday--that first Easter Saturday--held only a faint glimmer that there could be a Sunday. It was dark. It was desperate. It was almost beyond hope.
But there was more to Saturday. Because Saturday was the day of Sabbath, the day of rest. The day when all the world stopped, for just a moment, to breathe and replenish. Saturday was to be the weekly reminder of the seeds sowed deep in the earth, awaiting spring. Unseen above the soil, it was the place where roots grew deep, where the hard work was done. A moment both of rest and of preparation. Easter Saturday was the long pause before life burst forth.
And so we find ourselves, friends, in the middle of Easter Saturday. The unthinkable has happened, the world turned upside down. We are isolated, alone, afraid. But we are also in a season of Sabbath, a global quieting, a long pause. And so we wait.
Actually, much of our life is lived in Easter Saturdays. Not on the scale we're living now, of course. But many of our days will be Saturdays: the spaces between the moment of crisis and the hope of victory. They will be days when we are forced to close our doors, to pause. We will live in the tension between dread and fear, hope and promise. We know Sunday is coming. But we must live Saturday, too.
We need each of the days of Easter: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. As painful as it is, let each day do its work in your heart. Let it prepare you for the bursting forth of spring. Sunday is coming, friends, but don't forget to live Saturday, too. There is richness in the pain, in the unknown, in the waiting, in the Sabbath. There is a reason Jesus didn't return on Saturday. We needed each day; we need it still. Take the moment to pause, linger in the unknown, sink your roots deep into the soil. When spring comes--when Easter Sunday dawns--you will be ready for it. Because of the work of Easter Saturday.
