Lent XXXXVI....Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday is an interesting day.  Maybe, thought provoking is a better word.  It is the day between Good Friday and Easter, the day between the cross and the empty tomb, the day between what appeared to be defeat and what can only be described as stunning victory.  Traditionally, it has been for the church a day of continued prayer.  It has been a moment of waiting as with the women who waited for Saturday to pass so that they could return to the tomb of Jesus to finish what had been started but left undone on Friday evening. 

 

It does make for a thought provoking moment of reflection.  The stone was obviously not rolled away until Sunday morning.  We do not think of Jesus being resurrected from the dead until Sunday morning, but if you are God why wait? Of course, there is the matter of scripture and the words of Jesus which spoke of being raised from the dead in the time allotted between Friday evening and Sunday morning.  Still, one cannot help but wonder.  The stone was not rolled away so that Jesus could make an early morning exit.  If being raised from the dead was not an insurmountable problem for God, surely getting Jesus out of the tomb without disturbing the landscape would have been a piece of cake. It sounds like what we have always heard is true.  The stone was not rolled back so that Jesus could enter, but so that we could enter.

 

Still, is hard not to wonder about what this death of Jesus meant.  Was the creation brought into being through divine creative breath now totally empty of His presence?  Was He no longer a part of it except as a memory of Someone who lived among us?  What was it like when eyes closed in death saw light again?  What was it like when the spirit rushed into a resurrected form to create a new life?  What will it be like for us?  Does that moment when the Spirit rushes into our mortal bodies creating something new in anyway resemble that moment when we are touched by unleashed resurrection power and given what can only be known as eternal life?  Holy Saturday.  A day for pondering.  And waiting for Easter.