And So We Wait

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

Earlier in the Lenten journey, I spoke of St. Joseph as the patron saint of the slog of life.  My sense is if there were a feast day, today would be it.  In the Good Friday service we hear Jesus say to his disciples, “all of you will have your faith shaken.”  Holy Saturday embodies a shaken faith, and no one is spared from this.

For a long time, I never really understood Holy Saturday.  It just seemed to be a filler day or the placeholder between the tragedy of Good Friday and the wonder of the resurrection.  And, of course, all of this is narrated from the ending of the story backwards.  We “know” how it’s going to turn out, and so the uncertainty of this day may not quite be felt in the same way.

Imagine that you are fasting for a day.  You know that you will eat later on, and so you might tell yourself that it will be OK and work through the hunger.  

But imagine if you were hungry and truly did not know when you would eat again. Reassurance is a little harder to come by.

Or maybe imagine that you go in for a routine outpatient surgery.  You know that you’ll be home that evening.  

Imagine instead that you are rushed to the emergency department with a debilitating injury.  You do not know when (or if) you will come out of the hospital or what level of functioning you will have.

Holy Saturday holds up all of the things in our lives where we really do not know how things will end or turn out.  We are in the midst of those stories right now and they are not finished.  Furthermore, these are not the stories that we enjoy.  These are the stories of tragedy, loss, disappointment, grief and uncertainty.  No one wants to be stuck in those stories.

Richard Rohr speaks often about the “universal patterns” of the spiritual life.  One that he names is Order, Disorder, Reorder.

Holy Saturday is about Disorder. We have left what was familiar behind and the new reality is not yet upon us.  It is generally not a space that feels good and is often a place of heartache, disorientation and restlessness.

Furthermore, there is little we can “do” to solve or fix it.  We must just wait.

I have always loved when our gospel choir sings the song, “Stand”.  The lyrics capture a lot of what I think today is all about.

What do you do when you’ve done all you can

And it seems like it’s never enough?

And what do you say

When your friends turn away

And you’re all alone?

Tell me, what do you give when you’ve given your all

And it seems like you can’t make it through?

Well, you just stand when there’s nothing left to do

You just stand, watch the Lord see you through

Yes, after you’ve done all you can

You just stand

This is a space we all must inhabit.

But I also think about the many people and groups of people who bear special witness to this Holy Saturday energy.  

There are so many who have struggled for human and civil rights yet never saw the fulfillment of the dream that they longed for. There are many who lived and died in poverty longing for a different life that they deserved to live.  There are many families who lost loved ones to state violence and never had their loss acknowledged or lived to see justice done. There are many people who died prematurely because of the conditions that they lived in. 

So many throughout history lived and died in the Disorder stage. They toiled for justice and never saw the fruits.  They endured horrible loss and never got acknowledgment.  They endured trauma and no one responded.

In times like these, after we have done all we can, we just stand. Our hearts wait and long for something that we can work towards but we cannot fully usher in. We feel our own powerlessness and smallness, and must trust that God is somehow still with us. As Fr. Jim said at the Good Friday service, “God is silent, but not absent.” And so we wait for God.

For today, just offer up all that is unfinished, unresolved, undone and unsettled.  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.