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HOLY SATURDAYl WAITING to CROSS OVER
We tend to think of Holy Saturday as a day ‘in between’
Good Friday and Easter Sunday, without any particular
significance of its own. But this could not be further from
the truth, says James Hanvey SJ. It is a day that resists all
of our attempts to understand it, but nonetheless we
must ‘live in the realities of Holy Saturday’.
We don’t know what to do with it. Somehow it gets lost
between the solemn exhaustion of Good Friday and the
excitement of the Easter Vigil. Yet it is not an interlude
between acts while the scenery changes behind the
curtain. Neither is it a time when God continues to work
in some other realm of redemption like the descent into
Hell. All that can be done, all that needs to be done, is
done on the cross. We must not run away from its finality.
It is over; all our lives we will be discovering the depths of
that closure. We cannot even begin to appreciate what it
means if we do not live in the realities of Holy Saturday.
Without the experience of this day neither our hearts nor
minds, not even our souls, are prepared for Good Friday
or Easter Morning.
ANOTHER MESSAGE ON HOLY SATURDAY;
HOLY SATURDAY
BETWEEN GOOD FRIDAY and EASTER:
Well, today is the day we remember the silent Saturday
that came between the crucifixion and the resurrection.
There is no record in Scripture as to what happened on
that day, none whatsoever. It had to have been a day of
desolation for the disciples though. Everything they had
dreamed about and hoped for seemed to be shattered.
Jesus, the one they were sure was the Messiah, the one
they had given their lives to follow, was dead. Now what?
Several people, among them C.S. Lewis, have written
about the importance of this day. Lewis said, correctly I
think, that the day was needed to contemplate the
magnitude of what had happened at the cross and
was needed to allow them – and us – to see the
crucifixion and resurrection each in their own light a
s well as together. The day of desolation was needed,
they contend. Had Jesus come out of the tomb five
minutes after burial or even after one night, the
resurrection would not have been seen as profound
as it really was. I suspect they are right. It probably
did give them a day to absorb the devastating death
of Jesus; it probably did make the resurrection all that
more amazing one day later. The living Son of God
became real only after they accepted the death of Jesus.
It would do us good to put ourselves in their shoes and
contemplate the day as well.
But I think silent Saturday serves another purpose.
In a very real way, we live there. Our lives are filled
with periods of dashed hope. A death occurs, a marriage
breaks up, a debilitating illness strikes or a dozen other
things can come and we are devastated. Day by day our
lives resemble that Saturday more than the triumph of
Easter Sunday.
Sometimes our silent Saturdays; our periods of desolation
without answers, go on for weeks, months or even years.
We live, as they did on that Saturday, with no explanation
or understanding of why. On that day they learned the hard
part of a lesson that became clear to them only later; they
learned to live in hope.
I’ve always been puzzled by Christians who make them-
selves believe that our faith makes us immune to having
bad things happen. Silent Saturday assures us that this is
not true. But it also assures us that one day; perhaps long
in the future, perhaps not until Jesus returns, that God will
not be silent.
If I could go back in time and speak to the disciples on that
day I’d want to tell them not to be afraid; not to give up
hope; that a new day would bring hope beyond your wildest
dream. But when I think about it I need to tell myself that
because sooner or later my silent Saturday will come.
SUNDAY IS ALMOST HERE!