Holy Saturday – April 19
Readings: Because the church celebrates the Easter vigil on Saturday evening, the readings for today are many! In fact the readings really encapsulate the whole faith story, and I would highly recommend reading the progression at http://usccb.org/bible/readings/042019.cfm
But for today, I am going to focus on the day between Jesus’ death and what happened after that.
All that the disciples knew on this day was that their leader was dead after having been betrayed and denied by their very own. They had now scattered in fear, and I would imagine were in a state of shock and trauma. All seemed lost.
I am guessing the we, too, have had experiences like this. Life just doesn’t turn out like we thought. We are brought to our knees somehow. Hopelessness finds us. We reach the limits of our capacities to endure. We just can’t see that there could be a good future
It might be due to a relationship ending.
It might be due to mental or physical illness.
It might be due to addiction – ours or someone else’s.
It might be due to a job loss.
It might be due to violence of some kind which tears life apart.
It might be due to a humiliation of some kind.
It might be due to an overwhelming life event.
And at the time, there’s not a thing we can do about it. We try to fix it somehow, but we can’t. We are just forced to FEEL the limitation, the pain, the sorrow and the helplessness.
I view Holy Saturday as the “feast day” for all the stuff in our lives which is unresolved, aching, overwhelming, gut-wrenching and painful and is the stuff we cannot immediately solve, resolve or dissolve. (This does not mean we have to accept it, mind you, it’s just that we cannot immediately change it).
Jesus has not risen yet. There is no ‘way out of no way’ that has appeared.
To sit in Holy Saturday space – at any time of the year – is to truly not know the outcome.
And so, like so many times in the faith journey we remain still and trust. Our hearts wait and long for something we can work towards but we cannot fully usher in.
I have always loved the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero in his poem A Future Not Our Own
A Future Not Our Own
It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.
This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
Maybe for today, we just hold everything that is somehow beyond our view.