Holy Saturday

We are faced on Holy Saturday with the most puzzling thing. God died and is resting in a tomb. How indeed can this be?

I know the early church fathers shied away from language like "God died." Many had a Greek notion of God that included impassibility. God could not experience something like pain and death.

But we believe that Jesus was in fact God. And Jesus died. Somehow God is able to even experience death!

The first disciples were not thinking like this. They were hiding. They were devastated. They had absolutely no hope. John (the only disciple to be a eyewitness) would have reported to them that he had seen Jesus die. Blood and water came out of the wound in his side.

No hope.

We move too quickly to Easter. We need to stop and ponder this deep mystery of Jesus/God in the tomb. We know how the story ends, but we will only fully appreciate the wonder and glory if we first dive deep into the sorrow and grief of that first Saturday.

In many ways we live in Holy Saturday all the time. We live between our own death and our resurrection. Yes, Jesus' resurrection power is at work in us now, but Paul said he didn't think the present suffering worth comparing with the glory to come. We still hurt, friends and loved ones die. There is no justice, the guilty go free, the innocent are condemned.

Too many in our world are like those first disciples. They have no hope. But by living our Holy Saturday lives grasping the full measure of sorrow and remembering Jesus' words that he must rise again, we can bring real hope to our world. We walk with others through their pain, but knowing that Sunday morning with it's completely unexpected joy is close at hand.