We tend to not pay as much attention to the Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday as we do those two momentous days, but as my friend Bill (William Lawrence) shares in his thoughts today, we need to pause and reflect on the weight of that Holy Saturday, too.
It’s important to slow down for a minute and consider the importance of it all, rather than simply anticipate and prepare for Sunday.
We have the opportunity, this year, and maybe for the first time in your busy life, as the world slows down, stays home, and takes a breath, to make time to be still and consider the importance of the day between the crucifixion and the resurrection.
What must that day have been like for the people in Jesus’ day?
“You have taken from me friend and neighbor — darkness is my closest friend.” (Psalm 88.18)
What King David wrote in Psalm 88 sounds a little bit like what we may be feeling today, as we practice social isolation because of COVID-19…
Those who knew and loved Jesus probably felt many of the same emotions we are feeling and King David felt, but taken to an exponential level.
I mean, a person can have hope but still wonder, deep down, “what if?”.
We have the benefit of hindsight, of knowing what actually happened, and what is coming, so it’s hard not to want to jump ahead.
But take a moment with me, and reflect on what Bill has to say here. His comments are based on readings of daily devotionals found in The Daily Office from the Mission of St. Clare (https://www.missionstclare.com/english/).
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From Bill Lawrence:
Reflections on the Daily Office — Holy Saturday
INote: Some slight formatting for emphasis has been added. RHT)
Holy Saturday (4.11.20)
Morning Psalm 88, 95
Lamentations 3.37-58
Hebrews 4.1-16
Romans 8.1-11
Evening Psalm 27
Don’t rush the resurrection. Yesterday was a time to remember the agony and the suffering of the Christ. Tomorrow will be the glorious remembrance of the triumph of the resurrected Christ. But in between Good Friday and Easter Sunday there is Holy Saturday. Many times in our anxious lives, we want to get past the horror of Friday to the glory of Sunday —- and we don’t stop to reflect on Holy Saturday. The gospel of death and resurrection is not complete without burial — without the time in the tomb on Holy Saturday.
Jesus is in the tomb. It is the Sabbath Day. But for Jesus it is not his ordinary Sabbath. He will not spend it in worship with his friends. He will not reach out in compassion and heal a sick person as he did on so many Sabbath days. He will not be surrounded by joyful and innocent children at play. He is in the tomb and he is at rest — just as he and his Father rested on the seventh day after the work of creation. The day before — at the end of his agony — he had cried out “It is finished!”.
His rest on this Sabbath is not a rest from the work of creation -— but a rest from the work of re-creation.
Later this evening I will be gathering with other Christians in an Easter Vigil — only this year it will be a Virtual Vigil. We will be lighting candles to bring light into our darkness. We will be reading Scripture and remembering the salvation story. We will be renewing the promises we made to God when we were baptized. We will prepare our hearts and minds for the resurrection. But now it is time to sit in the darkness between death and resurrection. We need to spend time with Jesus in his tomb.
Psalm 88 is traditionally a part of the Daily Office every Holy Saturday. This song of lament is one of the bleakest and saddest chapters in all of the Bible. It is an expression of feeling forgotten and rejected. The psalmist is overwhelmed. Worst of all he is crying out to God, wondering where God is in his suffering. All the other psalms of lament end in hope, but Psalm 88 ends with these words:
You have taken from me friend and neighbor — darkness is my closest friend. (Psalm 88.18)
One of the most difficult seasons we can endure is when we feel that God is silent. Sometimes it feels as if everything is going wrong. We feel forgotten and rejected.
We think that God’s silence means his absence.
These are the Holy Saturday feelings of Jesus’s apostles and friends. Jesus is lying in a tomb and hope has been crushed. Perhaps these are your Holy Saturday feelings as well.
When we walk with Jesus, we have to walk with him through his death. We too, must have Good Friday moments in our lives.
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9.23)
The way of the cross is a death to self. Our personal path to the cross is expressed most clearly in Romans 6.
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6.1-8)
“We were buried with him through baptism . . . .” When we go through the process of daily dying to ourselves, we must, by necessity, go through burial as well. Burial is a time of darkness. It is a time when we wrestle with our Psalm 88 feelings. Burying our past is never easy. But in the silence of our darkness we will also discover we are not alone. We are buried with him.
I look forward to the light of resurrection morning, but today I will sit in the darkness with Jesus.
There are lessons to be learned in the dark.
Holy Saturday will be a time of resting and leaning into the presence of my Lord Jesus — I do not want to rush the resurrection.
“Father, I have been journeying with your Son during this Holy Week. I now rest with him in the darkness. I know that I am not alone. Jesus is with me. Light will be flooding all around me in the morning, but for today help me to learn what I need to learn in the darkness. May I not rush the resurrection. In the name of the One who rests with me even as he re-creates me, Amen.”
— bill lawrence
You are invited to join with me and many others in tonight’s Virtual Easter Vigil at 7 pm Pacific Daylight Time. Your Zoom login information as well as some important instructions will be found at nwchurch.com Please click “Holy Week” on the top information bar. On the next page click on the button that says “Connect to Saturday Vigil at 7 pm”. You will discover a link to a pdf that will contain our responsive readings for the evening. The Vigil scriptures are also listed below.
Lectionary for Holy Saturday
◻️ Saturday (4.11.20)
Job 14.1-14
Lamentations 3.1-24
Psalm 31.1-16
1 Peter 4.1-8
Matthew 27.57-66
John 19.38-42
Some Christians gather late on Saturday evening in a vigil to wait the for the celebration of the glorious resurrection of our Lord. The readings in the vigil are lengthy because they remind us how God has been active in saving his covenant people throughout time – from the flood to those who will be brought back from the exile. Communion is also taken during this time as we remember the sacrifice of Jesus. The vigil ends with a reminder of how we too have been saved by Jesus as we remember our baptism into Christ. Many times people who are ready to proclaim Jesus as their Savior are baptized at an Easter Vigil.
Easter Vigil
◻️ Late Evening on Holy Saturday (4.11.20)
Genesis 1.1-2.4a
Psalm 136
Genesis 7.1-8;8.6-18; 9.8-13
Psalm 46
Genesis 22.1-18
Psalm 16
Exodus 14.10-31; 15.1-21
Isaiah 55.1-11; 12.2-6
Proverbs 8.1-8; 19-21; 9.4b-6
Psalm 19
Ezekiel 36.24-28
Psalm 42, 43
Ezekiel 37.1-14
Psalm 143
Zephaniah 3.14-20
Psalm 98
Romans 6.3-11
Psalm 114
Matthew 28.1-10
Mark 16.1-8
Luke 24.1-12
Peripheral Wisdom 