Holy Saturday: I wait...

We hear the Gospel for Holy Saturday: 

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

A website I read sums up what today means. Most people say this is Easter Saturday. It isn’t! : 

“Most people will ignore and skip the Church’s remembrance of Holy Saturday. No one, however, gets to ignore and skip the reality of Holy Saturday in life. Holy Saturday is the in between time. The tragedy of the crucifixion is past but the glories of the resurrection are not yet here. We are neither here nor there. We are stuck in the middle. What was is no more and what will be is not yet clear or known. It feels as if there is nowhere to go and nothing to do.”

What are you doing with this Saturday? Not a lot probably! Mr Rabb says we mustn’t go out. It’s not the bank holiday weekend we envisaged. And the sun is shining which makes staying in hard. 

In normal circumstances people would be out and about at the seaside, in garden centres, away on holiday with family on the first long school break of the year. But not this year. 

Holy Saturday if we do it properly is a day of silence and stillness, waiting and wondering, remembering and hoping. Perhaps that is what faithfulness looks like on Holy Saturday. There is not much to do except be present to the reality of what is, to sit opposite the tomb.

How were the characters who’d been at the cross or fled from it feeling on the Saturday? 

The disciples, apart from John, were shaking in fear in the upper room. They were heartbroken - or perhaps angry - that the Jesus project they’d signed up for had gone spectacularly wrong. They waited... what would happen next? 

The women, who had watched Jesus die, used Saturday to prepare for a trip to the tomb early on Sunday morning to pay their respects. 

The authorities - well I guess they were celebrating this rebel troublemaker who had threatened their world had been dealt with. 

All those Jesus had ministered to, those he’d preached to, healed, transformed, and promised so much, I guess felt let down. 

Joseph of Aramathea at least could do something by placing Jesus’ broken dead body in his tomb. 

It was a day, the authorities aside, of sadness, numbness and feeling stuck. 

We have times when after major life traumas all we can do is wait. After bereavement of any kind we cannot see how we can move on. Our bodies say “stop” and we feel demoralised and we cannot function. We need time. 

There is, in life, a waiting time. We have to wait for the lockdown to end; I have to wait to move house which should have happened next month. It is not easy to cope when we’ve been through trauma. We have to accept where we find ourselves. We will be able to move on when we feel ready but I think it’s quite alright to not be able to do anything for a bit until we have a way out. 

Where is Christ on Holy Saturday? The Apostles Creed says “He descended to the dead” or, “He descended into hell.”

In the King James Bible, the Old Testament term Sheol is translated as "hell" 31 times, and it is translated as "the grave" 31 times. Sheol is also translated as "the pit" three times. Modern Bible translations typically render Sheol as "the grave", "the pit", or "death". There was in the Old Testament little thought of an after life so to go to “the pit” would mean a total absence from and of God. The Psalmist often begs God to rescue him from it. Psalm 40 is an example: “ He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”

Holy Saturday is when Christ descends into hell, breaks the bonds of death, and sets the captives free. We will sing “Christ the Lord is risen today” in the morning. That hymn includes the line: ”Christ has burst the gates of hell. Alleluia!”Jesus descended to hell not to suffer, but to proclaim victory — to administrate what is known as ‘the harrowing of hell.’

Thomas Aquinas envisioned Christ arriving in the darkest depths to flood them with light: ‘as He showed forth His power on earth by living and dying, so also He might manifest it in hell, by visiting it and enlightening it.’ 

So while the Church rests and waits on Holy Saturday, Jesus is at work. I only discovered the Easter vigil a few years ago. Methodists don’t do Holy Saturday! It never occurred to me that Jesus rose in the night in the dark. It’s very powerful to do a Holy Saturday service which begins in the dark. We were on the beach on Holy Island last year. The paschal candle is lit in the dark, the service begins in the dark, it is from uncertainty and crushing of hope that God acts. 

This Saturday we wait and we hope. Despite all that happens to destroy us, God never stops amazing us. We hold on. In uncertainty and even in tears, we cling on to hope...

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the
coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.