My younger son asked me tonight on the drive home from the Good Friday service, "Dad, is there a name for tomorrow? I know today was Good Friday and Sunday is Easter. What's tomorrow called?" Such thoughtful theological inquiry, and from a nine year-old--I love it!
Tomorrow's called "Holy Saturday" and most of us Protestant Christians don't know what to do with it. Maybe it's a day for Easter Egg Hunts? For setting out the clothes we'll wear Sunday? Or getting the ham or lamb ready for the big meal to come? The more traditional, ancient churches have liturgies and services for this day. But we latecomers to the party don't have much to offer. Maybe that should change...
Holy Saturday commemorates Jesus in the tomb. Really dead. As the Creed says, "He descended into hell." Whether that refers to his complete spiritual and psychological alienation from God (John Calvin) or to a more shadowy "harrowing of hell" in which he went to the abode of the dead to preach to them the gospel, we don't know. What's clear is that Holy Saturday is quiet and unassuming. No anguish like Good Friday; no joyous celebration like Easter Sunday. It's the in-between holiday. Not much goes on. That we can see.
Holy Saturday reminds us that God is still at work even when there's not much evidence. It's like a long winter in which the seeds of daffodils lie fallow beneath the cold, hard soil. Doesn't mean nothing's happening. Just means we can't see it. Sometimes God's best work happens when we least see it. It's then we need to trust that life is pulsating beneath the ground, ready to burst forth in bright colors, if we will only be patient. "Wait for the Lord," the psalmist urges. And so on Holy Saturday, or anytime we can't see God, we wait...and we trust...and we hope. Life is right around the corner...
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