The universe holds its breath
A day...such as never was of old (Joel 2:2)
This day in the Christian calendar has more names than any day I've ever come across. Even the partial list I have is pretty long: Holy Saturday, Sabbatum Sanctum, the Saturday of Holy Week (rather dull that one), Holy and Great Saturday, the Great Sabbath, Black Saturday, Joyous Saturday, Hallelujah Saturday, Glorious Saturday, Easter Eve (not really a name somehow), Joyous Saturday and the Saturday of Light.
One vaguely feels that no one has quite worked out what to do with it. It is as if we've had all the energy worked out of us by the events of Easter week and now have nothing left to give. We, like Jesus' disciples, are emotionally and physically exhausted. We need a break and we get one. It's the day of rest.
For the first disciples this must have made sense. The criminals either side of Jesus were dispatched quickly rather than left to suffer for days because of the Sabbath. It was not an act of mercy to break their legs but a nod at the religious sensitivities of the locals. The Jewish Sabbath could not be defiled with a body nailed to a wooden cross. Even Pilate wouldn't risk a rebellion over something so trivial. For everyone, it was a day of no work, God's rest day ordained at creation.
At this point, in some sense nothing extraordinary at all has happened. Putting to one side the broken tombs of Matthew for a moment, Jesus' death was not unusual in the first century. The Romans executed thousands, sometimes nailing them on both sides of a major highway just to make a point. And would be messiah's were not that unusual. Of course, with 2000 years' hindsight, even Jesus' words alone are more than a little bit special, but I'm not sure it would have felt that way at the time, except to his inner circle. Without the exposure of today's global media, I suspect to those in charge it must have felt like another annoyance had been dispatched and life could carry on as normal.
So Easter Saturday is like an intake of breath. A pregnant pause in which the whole universe waits in expectation. He claimed to rise again from the dead, but will he? Today has no single set name because it's role is to be a gap, an empty space in the calendar, a day of listening and waiting.
The church in all it's usual wisdom has tried to fill the gap. One way this has been done is to give Jesus a task, the 'harrowing of hell'. This idea references the creedal statement, 'Jesus descended into hell', where orthodox Christianity declares it's belief in the reality of Jesus' death. This is then connected to Peter's suggestion that at some point Jesus 'preached to the spirits in prison' to create a story of Jesus spending Saturday telling his good news to all those who had gone before, who were stuck in hell, and setting them free.
This is a dearly held view, so I need to be careful, but it does have a couple of problems. It's earliest proponents appear to have made scripture up to support it, which isn't a great encouragement, and Peter distinctly has Jesus' preaching to those in prison as happening after the resurrection. What it does well, though, is give concrete form to the timelessness of Jesus' salvation. Jesus forgets no one, and all those who thought they had no saviour discover that they did have one all along. It is very much in tune with Christ's infinite saving love.
No, my difficulty with it is the way it is connected to Easter Saturday, turning the day into a day of action, a day when Jesus does something. It feels so much more right for it to be a true Sabbath rest. The whole of creation has a moment of silence, watching and waiting. Even the King of Creation gets a day off to prepare for resurrection. For one day all the universe waits in hush for Sunday morning. Up to this point, Jesus could be dismissed as just another would be messiah. Tomorrow changes everything.
So today is a day to stop and do nothing. A day to enjoy the moment of silence as the conductor raises his batten. A day to wait.
This day in the Christian calendar has more names than any day I've ever come across. Even the partial list I have is pretty long: Holy Saturday, Sabbatum Sanctum, the Saturday of Holy Week (rather dull that one), Holy and Great Saturday, the Great Sabbath, Black Saturday, Joyous Saturday, Hallelujah Saturday, Glorious Saturday, Easter Eve (not really a name somehow), Joyous Saturday and the Saturday of Light.
One vaguely feels that no one has quite worked out what to do with it. It is as if we've had all the energy worked out of us by the events of Easter week and now have nothing left to give. We, like Jesus' disciples, are emotionally and physically exhausted. We need a break and we get one. It's the day of rest.
For the first disciples this must have made sense. The criminals either side of Jesus were dispatched quickly rather than left to suffer for days because of the Sabbath. It was not an act of mercy to break their legs but a nod at the religious sensitivities of the locals. The Jewish Sabbath could not be defiled with a body nailed to a wooden cross. Even Pilate wouldn't risk a rebellion over something so trivial. For everyone, it was a day of no work, God's rest day ordained at creation.
At this point, in some sense nothing extraordinary at all has happened. Putting to one side the broken tombs of Matthew for a moment, Jesus' death was not unusual in the first century. The Romans executed thousands, sometimes nailing them on both sides of a major highway just to make a point. And would be messiah's were not that unusual. Of course, with 2000 years' hindsight, even Jesus' words alone are more than a little bit special, but I'm not sure it would have felt that way at the time, except to his inner circle. Without the exposure of today's global media, I suspect to those in charge it must have felt like another annoyance had been dispatched and life could carry on as normal.
So Easter Saturday is like an intake of breath. A pregnant pause in which the whole universe waits in expectation. He claimed to rise again from the dead, but will he? Today has no single set name because it's role is to be a gap, an empty space in the calendar, a day of listening and waiting.
The church in all it's usual wisdom has tried to fill the gap. One way this has been done is to give Jesus a task, the 'harrowing of hell'. This idea references the creedal statement, 'Jesus descended into hell', where orthodox Christianity declares it's belief in the reality of Jesus' death. This is then connected to Peter's suggestion that at some point Jesus 'preached to the spirits in prison' to create a story of Jesus spending Saturday telling his good news to all those who had gone before, who were stuck in hell, and setting them free.
This is a dearly held view, so I need to be careful, but it does have a couple of problems. It's earliest proponents appear to have made scripture up to support it, which isn't a great encouragement, and Peter distinctly has Jesus' preaching to those in prison as happening after the resurrection. What it does well, though, is give concrete form to the timelessness of Jesus' salvation. Jesus forgets no one, and all those who thought they had no saviour discover that they did have one all along. It is very much in tune with Christ's infinite saving love.
No, my difficulty with it is the way it is connected to Easter Saturday, turning the day into a day of action, a day when Jesus does something. It feels so much more right for it to be a true Sabbath rest. The whole of creation has a moment of silence, watching and waiting. Even the King of Creation gets a day off to prepare for resurrection. For one day all the universe waits in hush for Sunday morning. Up to this point, Jesus could be dismissed as just another would be messiah. Tomorrow changes everything.
So today is a day to stop and do nothing. A day to enjoy the moment of silence as the conductor raises his batten. A day to wait.
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| God's window, from the garden route, South Africa |
I always feel a bit in limbo on this day, each year. I hadn't really thought about Jesus being in the depths of hell. Maybe I just need to use this day as an opportunity to reflect on the immense sacrifice of the cross in order to fully understand the joy of the resurrection.
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