Holy Saturday 2024

 Today is Holy Saturday again, the yearly line of demarcation between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.  I have written about Holy Saturday. and the in-between state it has been nearly every year for the past 14 or so, and, admittedly, it has been difficult to come up with different perspectives on it. It is a day of laying in groceries for a more-than-just-Sunday dinner, making sure supplies are laid in (and hidden away) for Easter baskets, dyeing eggs for those Easter baskets, and ordinary Saturday chores. Church-wise, it is a day to clean and decorate the sanctuary and altar in a splendor that puts a regular Sunday to shame and strongly contrasts with the sparsity of décor during Lent.

Last night, I was thinking about today. It came to me that I had never really considered what people in Jesus’s time were doing on that day. It was a sabbath, of course, so nobody was doing work unless the well-being of animals or sick people needed to be attended to. Jesus’s mother and those women who had surrounded the cross were still very much traumatized and grieving. It is not an easy thing to watch someone die, especially someone so important and beloved, and particularly not in such a horrible, painful, and shameful way. No wonder they probably sat in their kitchens and wept, feeling acutely the loss of such a loved and revered member of their family and circle.  I think that had tears been considered work, the women would have been forbidden to shed them.

The disciples would have been grieving as well, but also possibly still cowering in fear as they had done since the night in Gethsemane. Peter was the only one to have ventured to Herod’s palace to witness what transpired there as Jesus was tried. Peter had been spotted, however, and pointed out as a follower of Jesus. Doubtless, Peter made tracks for the hiding place where the rest of the disciples were hiding. He stayed there, fearful for his own life and those of his companions. It was also an opportunity for them to grieve as a community. There was no work to be done, so they had ample time to talk about their Master and tell familiar stories about their time with him.  Undoubtedly, that brought them comfort.

Other followers of Jesus no doubt tried to act normally as if the man on whom they had pinned so many hopes and dreams had not been so cruelly slain.  Of course, the Jewish followers would rest as the third commandment had laid out, and with the rest, the injunction to worship God, which would send them to the Temple or perhaps a local synagogue.

What about the non-Jewish followers? They probably carried on as usual, trying to seem as if nothing were wrong. Their world had turned upside down, but they could not show it openly. They, perhaps, had the hardest job. It is so hard to carry on as if nothing had happened when one’s heart is broken and bleeding, but no one else must see or even notice anything wrong.

It must have been a terrible day of nothingness. Unlike us today, they had no clue about the event or its magnitude, which would come in just a matter of hours. Their days of mourning would become a day of joy and gladness. 

The news of the resurrection probably did not spread like wildfire among the citizens of Jerusalem and its environment, but it would spread. Like the lights we today light from the new fire of the Easter Vigil, one candle is lit from the newly lit flames and then is passed from one candle to another until all have the candlelight showing their joy and faith.

What we do today is very different from what those in Jesus’s world would have done, but we, too, will spread the news of the resurrection and express joy in hymns, responses, prayers, and celebrations. We still must contend with Holy Saturday and what it means in our culture, but those who share the faith expect we will not feel this emptiness for long.

Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.

Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!