Holy Saturday, forwards and backwards

We can reflect on Holy Saturday, the day the Lord Jesus spent in the tomb, in two different directions.  Both are instructive, and each brings out a different emphasis.

Firstly, we can think our way into the story, and work forwards in time through the events.  Friday has happened.  The Lord is crucified.  Everything about Friday screamed finality.  Jesus breathed his last, gave up his Spirit.  "It is finished" - think about how you might have interpreted that on the Friday, before you knew what was going to follow.  The spear, the blood, the water.  And then the dead body laid out in the tomb, the heavy stone rolled across the doorway.  The last light disappears.  That's the end.

Reading the final verses of Lamentations at Evening Prayer yesterday, I was struck by the fact that it might really have been the end:

Lord, bring us back to yourself, so we may return;
renew our days as in former times,
unless you have completely rejected us
and are intensely angry with us.

It might be all over.  The mercy of God is new every morning - but...  Karl Barth asks at one point whether the mercy of God might not have taken the form of making a final end to us.  Would it not have been mercy for Christ to bear away our sin - remove the threat of eternal judgement - and yet just draw a line under the whole existence of humanity?  Like the mercy of expelling Adam from the garden, so that he would not eat from the tree of life and become an eternal sinner...

Thinking forwards from Friday into Saturday, we hold our breath.  Is it all over?

But second, we think backwards, from our position after Resurrection Day.  We know that Saturday is not the end.  Thinking forwards has taught us not to take the resurrection for granted, but thinking backwards we nevertheless know that it is coming.  Tomorrow will be Easter Sunday.  The Lord Jesus is alive, and reigns with the Father and the Spirit in the unity of the One God.  Though he was dead, he lives.

And yet he really was dead.  That needs to be remembered.  The one who lives for us really died for us.  That is gloriously good news!  He died bearing my sin; he died to put my old self to death.  And he really did.  There is no doubt about it.  His body lay still in the tomb.  My sin - my liability to judgement, my corruption, my uncleanness - is dead with him.  I can live now free of that, by the Spirit of the living Lord Jesus.  The stone that rolled across the door of the tomb is the final goodbye to my old sinful self.

Thinking back from Sunday to Saturday, we say: yes, it is all over.  And now everything is new.

The unique sorrow

When Israel lamented the destruction of Jerusalem, that terrible event was portrayed as incomparable.  "Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow..."  "What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter of Zion?  What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you..?"

Is this just grief-stricken hyperbole?  From what I know of the ancient world, the fate of Jerusalem was far from unique; from what I read in the news, much the same is happening around the world today.  It could, of course, be hyperbole.  The authors of Holy Scripture were men fully caught up in the national life of Israel and Judah, and felt keenly the national grief at the loss of Zion.  It would be no surprise if they gave vent to that grief in their writings.  But I think there is more behind it.  The suffering of Jerusalem is unique because two unique circumstances stand behind it.

The first is that the sin of Jerusalem is unique.  Jeremiah writes:

For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see, or send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has been such a thing.
Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory
for that which does not profit.

 No other nation has so rejected its gods - and those gods were just their own inventions, which could easily be changed at will!  But Israel has uniquely turned away from God, the Living God.  The sin is unique.

And the second circumstance stands behind that one.  Israel was a people uniquely privileged with knowledge of God, uniquely party to a gracious covenant with him.  "Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?"  "He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his rules."  Israel's unique relationship with God means that their rejection of God is a unique sin, and their suffering is the unique punishment of God on that unique sin.  No matter the historical resemblances to other situations, the internal logic is utterly different.

When one man died on a cross, his historical circumstances were far from unique; indeed, two other crucifixions occurred on either side.  But this man was unique, because he uniquely bore the guilt of all human sin.  And he was unique because he only stood in total unity with God, as God the Son incarnate.

Is there any sorrow like his sorrow?

Tempus Fugit

Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and for ever.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning.

Thoughts on my thirty-second birthday:

Our God is always the same, and always new; always both the Ancient of Days and the Bright Morning Star.  Always the One Who Was - never different from his own past.  Always the One Who Is - absolutely himself in the here and now.  Always the One Who Will Be - the promise that tomorrow and in every tomorrow he will be there, newly himself, newly the Same.

I am chained to time, but God is Free.  Time is his servant.  The God of the Bible - the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ - is not timeless.  But he is the Master of time.  He directs it.  I cannot be everything I am in a moment - so much of me is lost in the past, or unknown in the future.  But God is himself, at all times and in all places.  He bears within himself his own past and future, perfectly.  He is the Same.  The newness that meets us each morning in new mercy is the real newness of God, of the God who is always old in his newness and new from ancient days.  Eternal.

Our hope - the hope of the Christian - is not to be rid of time, but to have all our time and our times gathered up and united in his eternity.  To experience Sabbath - sanctified time, the time which is bound to the Lord of Time, the goal and end of all our time and times.

Lamentations: Two Moments

The Old Testament's great lament for Jerusalem, traditionally ascribed to the prophet Jeremiah, does not make easy reading. It describes some of the effects of ancient siege warfare in graphic detail, which is unpleasant to say the least. More than that, it is full of deep grief. Jerusalem is fallen; Judah is taken captive. The prophet grieves for his people. At a deeper level, the terrible question is raised: is that it for God's covenant? If so, the grief is not only for Judah, but for all creation.

There is a moment, however, in the centre of the book, where the darkness lifts. It is a fleeting glimpse of light, but stands out all the more for that: "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness".

Because of God's character, there is hope. Specifically, because God's mercies are new every morning, yesterday does not determine today, and today does not irrevocably set the course of tomorrow. Jerusalem's fall, and Judah's sin which prompted it, does not rule out future intervention by the God of grace. It does not rule out new mercy, and a morning of light.

And yet the book ends in another moment, the darkest moment in the whole Old Testament: "Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old - unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us".

The prophet ponders the darkest possibility. What if there is no new mercy? What if God has utterly rejected his people - as indeed their conduct fully deserves?

The two moments are related. Because God's mercy is new every morning, it cannot be presumed upon, but must be actively sought out, trusted, and received with each new day. The lament shows that the author, at least, has learnt the hard lesson of the fall of Jerusalem: past mercy does not provide present security. (Think of the cry of those who were confident that Jerusalem would never fall: "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!" They knew that in the past God had chosen this place, and they assumed that this past mercy guaranteed their security and blessedness in the here and now, no matter their behaviour or their present attitude to God).

How often do I fail to seek new mercy each day?