Easter weekend on Holy Island… on Saturday the place was heaving. Every cafe was full and I gather one of the shops took more in takings in one day than it would normally in July or August. I wonder what makes people come here in large numbers?
The world thinks Easter began on Friday and the next day is Easter Saturday. In recent years, having discovered the spirituality of Holy Saturday, the day before Easter, Easter always begins for me when least expected, in hard waiting times and times of grief when I think all might be lost. Easter begins in the dark and in anticipation that what happened on Friday just might not be the end. Easter begins with holding on to hope even where it feels hopeless.
Biblically speaking, the Gospels infer that nothing happens on the first Holy Saturday. Jesus was in the tomb and the disciples and women were no doubt grieving through a very quiet Sabbath, hidden away from the authorities whom they no doubt thought would be at the door first thing Sunday morning (Sunday being the first century Jewish equivalent of Monday for us).
Most churches skip the commemoration of Holy Saturday, but this year it seemed especially relevant. The first followers of Jesus were in a state of limbo–caught between the events of Good Friday and an uncertain future, and so are many in the world this weekend.
We can learn a lot from those who take Holy Saturday as an Easter beginning as seriously as the other days of Holy Week. Some traditions begin the Easter vigil on Saturday, looking toward Sunday, while others simply wait quietly for the Easter dawn. I have done both here which I will come to in a bit. The Eastern Orthodox tradition, however, takes a more active theological viewpoint–that Jesus not only is in the grave but that he also descends into Hades or hell to liberate those who have died.
On Holy Saturday, the disciples of Jesus surely descended into their own kind of hell–one to which anyone who has lost a loved one to death can relate. The finality and wrenching silence of death strikes fear in us. The silence of Holy Saturday reminds us powerfully that death isn’t something to be circumvented or avoided.
We need to go through a Saturday of death, recognising its power, before we can realize the power of a Sunday of resurrection, when death is defeated. We know that the dawn will still break the darkness, the tomb will be empty, and Christ will have broken death’s power. Much of the world still lives on Holy Saturday, poised between the pain of the cross and the hope of resurrection. We weep with those who weep, and sit with those who have no tears left to cry. We rage at injustice and the way it so often seems to triumph.
I like the way the Church of England reflection for Saturday puts it: “With all of creation, we cry out ‘Lord, have mercy’, and wait for God to meet us in pain and despair, and lead us into a future we can barely imagine.”
I chose to spend Saturday afternoon quietly walking round the Priory here on Lindisfarne. Since 635, when Aidan founded the first monastery, prayers have been offered for peace and hope year after year after year. There was a community at the Priory until 1537. Now it is a place where pilgrims come and today it felt a place amongst the tourists of solace and space to seek what God might be planning to do with me next. Contemplating return from sabbatical is hard.
One of my favourite verses of Scripture seems to sum up the belief that in our pain, God might do something. It’s from the Benedictus in Luke chapter 1:
“In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” It’s a verse that constantly reminds me of the nature of God who breaks into our lives when we need him. Easter might well come with exuberance but maybe it also comes with quiet assurance.
The Easter vigil on Saturday evening is now an important part of my spiritual journey. Methodists don’t generally do it! We gathered on St Cuthbert’s beach where the paschal candle was lit from the fire we stood round.
We then followed the candle into a darkened church and the service went through a series of readings reminding us of God’s saving work in history culminating in the resurrection of Jesus. Before I started doing Holy Saturday properly it never occurred to me Jesus rose in the dark of the night. It was the first time I did an Easter vigil very strange to sing Christ the Lord is risen today about 9pm on Saturday!
So to Easter Sunday. What is the Easter message this year? Well, I went to three services - dawn on the Heugh at 5.30am; a Book of Common Prayer Eucharist at 8am and a Festal Eucharist at 10.45am - then I had a sleep!!
Doing Saturday and then seeing Easter emerge this year has left me with three thoughts. First, that God’s way of new life is stronger than any death we might face. We read Psalm 118 on Saturday night after the church was lit again and we had celebrated Jesus had risen.
Give thanks to the Lord,
for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
Let the house of Israel say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
The right hand of the Lord has struck with power;
the right hand of the Lord is exalted.
I shall not die, but live, and declare the works
of the Lord.
The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone. By the Lord has this
been done; it is wonderful in our eyes.
Whatever we face, it cannot destroy us.
Then in the early morning of Sunday, an awareness we have to wait for God’s right time to remind us he is there even in the darkness. The sun was meant to rise just before 6am on Sunday morning. It did, of course, but behind a cloud. Most of the folk who gathered for the dawn service went home a bit disappointed they hadn’t seen the sun. I went down to the harbour as I was convinced there would be a break in the clouds if I was patient enough.
At just after 6.30am, the sun appeared like a orange filling of a black sandwich. The orange reflected on the water below it. I had an Easter theophany, standing in silence on my own. It was as if God was reminding me it’s all going to be okay.
I’m having a huge wobble about returning to work soon because I don’t know what’s been happening in my absence or whether people will want me back. I’ve barely started in my appointment due to the pandemic and I don’t feel I’ve made much difference and bits of my patch are struggling with little energy. It was as if this Sunday morning God was wanting me to wait for his reassurance of light amidst the darkness and uncertainty. He has a right time to speak to us and we might miss it or think it isn’t going to happen if we don’t just wait. Amazingly the orange glow disappeared soon after I’d been in awe of it, but just a moment was enough.
Then finally I guess Easter this year has been about remembering everyone matters. We renewed our baptism vows in the service both on Saturday night and in the 10.45 one on Sunday morning. We renounced the devil! We promised again to follow because Jesus has come and found us again like he found Mary in the garden. He has again called us by name.
It’s been heartening to hear a lot of sermons on Easter Sunday state that sending refugees to Rwanda is contrary to the nature of God. The promise of new life is for all, we cannot choose who we help find new life out of their dire circumstances, Jesus has risen for all, not just some. So that affects how we do things. Easter reminds us we need to be inclusive and inviting and radical in our love. Whoever we are, we get to begin again when it all felt hopeless.
What’s the Easter message for Ukraine or those still getting Covid or living in poverty or becoming refugees or struggling to keep the church going or facing some personal challenge? God knows us and our story – the pain and struggle, the joy and the celebration – and offers forgiveness and love more than we could ever imagine. It’s okay reading the John account of the resurrection in the Bible to tell Jesus why we are weeping!
I have this Holy Week seen anew how much darkness there is in the passion of Jesus. Lis and I lit some candles in St Mary’s Church after the service at lunchtime on Sunday. One for someone who has been bereaved, one each for three elderly friends who are faithful Christian souls who now can’t get to church and one each for ourselves to ask we find light in whatever we face ahead - and to thank God we met on Holy Island six years ago tomorrow.
On Saturday night and at the Eucharists on Sunday morning we lit the Easter candle. The small flame speaks of Christ’s light and love which will never be overcome by darkness or even death, however powerful or overwhelming or crushing the darkness might sometimes seem. Surely that’s the Easter Gospel. When we think all is lost, the love of God shown in the crucified and risen Christ finds us. It’s an amazing, peaceful, calm pastoral process - and when we know we are enfolded in resurrection light we can truly say “The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed.”
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