Faith Networking for Passionate Spirituality
Living in Holy Saturday
After Bible study this evening, a few of us students stuck around to shoot the breeze, air our hurts and frustrations, laugh, preach to each other, and just BE with each other. And it struck me as we were talking that a lot of us feel like we're living in Holy Saturday right now. So much has happened in the past months that makes us feel like God is distant or defeated--whether it's a difficulty seeing God at work in our lives, waiting for healing, or recoiling in pain as we are hurt by those who we expected to love us. It's hard to see much hope in a situation, when spiritually and emotionally, you feel like life is beating you senseless. Sometimes it just feels like Chirst is dead.
I wish I could write the typical newsletter column about the hope found in Easter and really mean it. But when I read those things, I just want to tear them up sometimes, because they never seem to really grapple with our Holy Saturdays. There's the horror of death, and then, whew! Easter's here! A sharp stab of pain, and then instant healing. Everything's suddenly ok.
Erm...no, it's not. Not yet. As I try to find my own story within the story of Holy Week, I find myself recoiling and reeling from the harsh realities within it, knowing about the "already," but experiencing the "not yet." But the narrative of Holy Week gives us space to grieve,I think-- to see the "not yet" before our eyes. For now, I feel like that's what I need: a space to weep and bleed and center myself. And as I do so, it helps to know that this place I'm in is firmly embedded in the story of Jesus' dying and rising; that even if I have trouble seeing Jesus in my story, I have the solace of finding myself in his.
I wish I could write the typical newsletter column about the hope found in Easter and really mean it. But when I read those things, I just want to tear them up sometimes, because they never seem to really grapple with our Holy Saturdays. There's the horror of death, and then, whew! Easter's here! A sharp stab of pain, and then instant healing. Everything's suddenly ok.
Erm...no, it's not. Not yet. As I try to find my own story within the story of Holy Week, I find myself recoiling and reeling from the harsh realities within it, knowing about the "already," but experiencing the "not yet." But the narrative of Holy Week gives us space to grieve,I think-- to see the "not yet" before our eyes. For now, I feel like that's what I need: a space to weep and bleed and center myself. And as I do so, it helps to know that this place I'm in is firmly embedded in the story of Jesus' dying and rising; that even if I have trouble seeing Jesus in my story, I have the solace of finding myself in his.
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Comment by Kevan Penvose on April 10, 2009 at 12:47pm - Amen to finding ourselves in Jesus' story! I try my best to stop time on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. They are by far my two favorite days of the whole church year. They hit home more than any other worhip for me. Foot washing, stations of the cross, tenebrae...and then Holy Saturday I just try to pause and to be. No jumping ahead to Easter for me. As resurrection people, we know the end of the story. But there's no hope in the end if we rush through the journey lest we have to acknowledge the pain of being transformed.
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