“Early evening, April four. A shot rings out in the Memphis sky. Free at last, they took your life They could not take your pride.” – U2, In the Name of Love
At 6:01 pm on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot dead as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN. His assassination set off a firestorm of uprisings, protests and outrage as people across this nation started to come to grips with the reality of how the civil rights movement would carry on in his absence. People felt lost, angry and hopeless.
The disciples could probably relate. In fact, we all can probably relate.
We have all faced losses that feel devastating. Maybe it was the death of someone close to us. Maybe it was a divorce or relationship rupture. Maybe we lost our job or living situation unexpectedly. Maybe it was a diagnosis that changed our lives.
Or maybe it is the world situation that unsettles us and seems so precarious right now.
There are a lot of stories in our lives that we just don’t know how they will play out. And so we must wait.
I have written before about Holy Saturday as what I call the “Feast Day of Shattered Dreams.”
Maybe we relate to Jesus because we thought God had our back and then seemed to disappear on us. Maybe the people we thought would be there for us took off. Maybe the blessing that we hoped for never came.
Maybe we relate to the disciples because we are grief-stricken and in shock at what has just happened in our lives and we seem surrounded by uncertainty.
Of course, we know the “end” of the story, but Jesus and the disciples did not.
I always find it interesting that there are no “official” readings for this day. There are only the readings for the Easter vigil (which I would highly encourage you to go and read because they are a tour of through the scriptural tradition as it relates to liberation and freedom). It’s as if the church is saying, “There’s no good news today. No uplift. No silver lining. We only have blank space to offer…”
Because life is like that sometimes – or maybe even often.
There is just blank space. No assurances. No real comfort. Just deep uncertainty that might play upon our fears and insecurities.
Holy Saturday holds up all of the bitter endings, unresolved conflicts, and painful separations that we experience and acknowledges all the disappointments and things we wished had happened that didn’t yet (or might never happen). It is a feast day that recognizes all of these fractures in our life and in the world, and it invites us into a difficult willingness to lament them and stay with them.
The Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron, has been a useful guide and teacher for me over the years. In her book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, she offers a lot of counsel to those who are trying to navigate the difficulties that we continually face. In it she says,
“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
This is not easy counsel, but it is true.
For today, maybe we can just offer up all that is unfinished, unresolved, undone and unsettled in our lives. Lift up the stories that you are in the middle of that you do not know how they will end. Be with the disciples who are scattered and scared. Rest in the company of Jesus in the tomb.
This day, too, has its place in the spiritual life.
3 Comments
frank staropoli
Thank you, Mike.
Karen D
Thank you for these wise words. Timing is perfect. But then there are many times when your posts seem to speak directly to me. I’m sure there are others who feel this way, too.
Blessings and Gratitude
Courtney Davis
I remember watching one particular documentary about MLK Jr. (I’ve watched and rewatched so many through the years that I can’t remember which one it was) where Bobby Kennedy is campaigning outside when he learns of the Reverend Dr.’s assassination. It’s nighttime and standing up in front of a shocked and suddenly grief-stricken crowd of supporters and civil rights activists, he cites a poem by Aeschylus,
“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
That poem has since stayed with me and, like a shield, has become one of the first things that comes to mind in moments of devastation and loss. So I can imagine the disciples gathered together in darkness and, upon learning that Jesus had finally given up the spirit and died on the cross, one of them standing up to cite this poem to console the grieving others.
And I can imagine Jesus repeating it to himself hanging in excruciating agony and even in his sleep after being laid to rest in the tomb. Pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart…there is no good news today – only uncertainty…but in the morning comes joy…and wisdom through the awful grace of God.
As always, thank you, Mike, for helping me work it out. And thank you, Jesus!
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