Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday is one of the most often overlooked but one of the most “real” days of the Christian calendar. On this day, the disciples do not know who they are, what to believe, and what is going to happen. They are full of exhaustion and grief after seeing their beloved teacher and friend murdered by the empire, but somewhere, deep within them, there is a seed of hope that Jesus himself planted that perhaps the story is not over yet. Holy Saturday is a liminal space, the space between mourning what was and having our world turned upside down by what emerges. Frankly, most of our life is lived in Holy Saturdays- in between spaces, spaces of regret or looking back to what was, while also hoping and dreaming for what might come on the road ahead. This is what most people do on Holy Saturday- look back, look forward- but the invitation is actually to do neither. The invitation is to be present with what is. To feel in our bodies the mixed emotions that we have as we face loss, transition, dashed dreams, and glimmers of hope. To allow the silence to speak to us, to allow our true thoughts and feelings to arise within us, and to allow the still, small voice of God to whisper words of healing and truth to our souls. Far too often we rush from grief towards hope, from Friday to Sunday, and this feels satisfying, but in doing so we bypass processing the grief and pain that we have. When we do this, we ensure that it will continue to pop up in unpleasant and unhelpful ways on the road ahead until it finally gets us to stop and be present with it- to feel it deeply, to sit in the discomfort- and then to move forward in wisdom and healing that only comes through walking through the fires of our pain. So on Holy Saturday, don’t rush to Sunday. Sit with the grief of Friday, the pains of your past, the wounds of your childhood- sit, like the disciples did, with others who have walked the similar road, and allow what you feel to simply be felt. Healing is coming, hope will arise with the morning light- but now is a time to feel and to process, knowing that God is with you even in the valley of the shadow of death. 

Brandan Robertson, Patron