Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday –‘Prayerful Day’

This is Holy Saturday. This is the in-between day. This is the day we are encouraged to stop, to reflect on life and death, even to wonder what happens to us when we die.  This is the day we think about death, the death of Jesus, the death of our loved ones, the death of our friends; the death of those we do not know – particularly this year as we are in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic where so many have lost their lives to the virus.

And what do we do in response to this day of waiting and reflecting?

We pray.

The numbness and pain of yesterday is still with us but so too is hope and promise. For in the events of Good Friday we see that Jesus is no stranger to human death – he has been there before us – and on this day when tradition thinks of Jesus as having descended into Hell to set the captives free, we believe that even in death, as he was in life, he did just that and by his death he can set us free too and there is the hope. For as it says in Romans 8 verses 38-39:

 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So, this should be a ‘Prayerful Day’, a day overflowing with our prayers, a day where we remember the dead but know deep in our hearts that they are safe with God, and we too are safe with God.

      

Today’s reading is John 19: 38-42

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Reflection (Stages on the Way)

It was on the Saturday that he was not there.

Those who don’t like corpses can’t stay away from graveyards, unless there’s some prohibition to stop them revisiting the dead end of their hopes and their dreams.

It’s as if they think that should the voice speak again, it will speak there or a sunbeam will dance or a flower will shoot and give a sign of misinterpreted life.

But close the cemetery, or confine, through custom or constraint, the wailing ones to the house and it looms larger… the loss, he lost-ness, the losers.

Men shiver in an upstairs room, warm though the day is.

Women weep in an uncharmed circle.

Memory is forced on memory. The mind’s eye tries to trace the profile and the face, the smile, the gentle twitching of the nose…. and fails. And a panic sets in because it seems he can’t be remembered.

Was he ever known?

It was on the Saturday that he was not there.

Prayer

Loving Lord Jesus,

In the silence of this day we wait with our tears, with our questions, with our fears and as we look to you may we know that death is not the end; that you are our hope always and you will make all things new. Through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour we pray. Amen.

Symbolic Action

Perhaps today on your walk take a trip around the graveyard as you reflect on life and death or sit at home in the silence with some spices around you as you reflect on Joseph and Nicodemus anointing Jesus’ body for the tomb. Dwell not only on death though, but also hope and promise.