Yes, I do have a slightly odd brain.
Let me explain. Holy Saturday is strange because it is neither here nor there. Liturgically, it is stuck somewhere between "Christ has died" and "Christ has risen". It's this curious waiting time between the cross and the resurrection. What does it mean? Is the world fixed? It doesn't look like it. Did the Messiah win? It doesn't look like it...
But then, Holy Saturday is also the day that most resembles my daily experience of life. Somewhere inbetween. Not anymore in the darkness of the past; not yet in the glorious brightness of the future. The whole of life is lived knowing that something decisive happened in the past, and something decisive will happen in the future. But I live in the meantime. And if I'm honest, I still look around at the world, and indeed at myself, and sometimes ask: is it fixed? Did he win? Because honestly, it doesn't look like it.
Holy Saturday is the day of holy angst.
For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened--not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 2 Cor 5:4
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Rom 8:22,23
Yes, it's an odd day. I have been in church this morning helping to get things ready for Easter - with our white communion table frontal and daffodils. But we aren't there yet!
ReplyDeleteHoly Saturday is a Romans 6 time: we have been united with Christ in a death like his, and we are going to be united with him in a resurrection like his. For the time being, we are pulled both ways. Hence St Paul's language about the war in Romans 7.