I never know what to do with myself on Holy Saturday.
Saturday comes, and I’m getting ready for people to come over for Easter.
I’m stressing out that I didn’t do enough for the kids’ Easter baskets. I’m thinking about next week and the to-do list.
All that, on a day when the disciples of Jesus waited. Waited with painful disbelief that their Lord had died. Waited with grief and fear and not knowing what would come next. Waited with heavy hearts.
I guess they didn’t even know they were waiting. Waiting implies that there’s something coming on the other side of the sadness or boredom or stagnancy of the present moment. I wonder whether that’s a word of hope for us—that in the times that feel like immovable grief or irreparable brokenness, maybe we are waiting.
Maybe that is the practice of Holy Saturday—to name all the places that feel like despair. To put them on a list and rage and grieve and hurt. And then to wonder whether they are not the end of the story, but rather moments of waiting. To allow hope to enter in. To reluctantly wonder whether God is trustworthy and faithful and loving and good. And then, to wait for love to emerge.
Like seeds deep in the darkness of the earth, waiting for warmth and sunshine and rain, waiting to grow. Waiting for new life to burst forth.
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