Holy Saturday seems to be that day that is lost within all the Holy Week observances. We go through the feast of Maundy Thursday, the solemn vigil of Good Friday, and then we simply wait around for Resurrection Sunday morning. But what happened Saturday? Well, not much. But that is actually the point, and it deserves some attention.
In Matthew’s Gospel, we hear about events that happen in between Friday and Sunday, what, on the church calendar, is called Holy Saturday. We know the end of the story. We anticipate the end of the story. And well we should because Matthew has given us explicit statements of Jesus as well as hints of anticipation throughout his record of Jesus’ life. But all of this occurs in history, which means that it takes time. Sometimes we want to jump over this part and immediately start reading the final chapter. If we do, we miss an important part of the gospel story and the opportunity to understand just a little better how God works.
The time span between the cross and resurrection has much to say to us on many fronts. When we get into the story and live there with the characters for that time (something we seek to do in the church year), we get more of a feel for the time that it takes for God to work these things out.
Alan Lewis in his book Between Cross & Resurrection exhorts us to take the time and stay in the grave with Jesus as it were between his death and resurrection.
We may misrepresent the pace of the biblical story, hurrying on to the end, impatient with its periods of slowness and waiting; we may silence some of its most painful and puzzling questions because we feel we already know its answers; we may ease its agonizing tensions through foreknowledge of their final relaxation. And in all of this we may suppress the very good news which the story holds for men and women who have to endure life slowly and patiently, who hear no answers to their own questions, or experience tensions with no guarantee of eventual resolution.
(29)
So, there is a significance to Holy Saturday. Paul includes the burial of Jesus in the announcement of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, giving it a place of importance in the proclamation of the gospel. Jesus’ burial is significant on a number of fronts (which deserve more time than I am able to give them here).
First, Jesus was actually dead. Burial indicates that they were dealing with a lifeless corpse. This seems to be a statement of the obvious, but for some who, like the Jewish leaders would prefer a non-resurrected Jesus, the fact of Jesus’ death is one that needs to be stated. People in the ancient world, though they did not have all of the great wealth of knowledge we have today, were not ignoramuses. They knew when people were dead. They probably understood and accepted it better than we do today. They knew Jesus was dead. His burial was an indication that he died. He died under the curse of sin.
This is significant because this is the one way the full debt of sin was paid. The penalty of sin is death. If Jesus did not die, then sin’s penalty has not been paid. A swoon or a coma wouldn’t have sufficed.
Second, as we live with the historical realities of Jesus’ burial, realizing there is a significant amount of time between his death and resurrection, we can understand why the disciples were dismayed. There is no excitement. In fact, it is just the opposite. They had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel, but now he is dead. They are living with that cold, hard reality between the cross and resurrection. There is no jumping ahead for them. Sure, there are promises, but they are living in a day of not-yet-fulfilled promises. Because the promises focus on the future, that means that they aren’t present reality. That means that present reality is painful.
Future promises help us to persevere, but they don’t eliminate the painful present. This time is a time when all of their hopes are in a tomb. As Lewis says, “Here resurrection is not permitted to verge upon the cross, instantaneously converting its death into new life, still less to trespass death’s own borders and thus to identify the cross with glory. Instead, death is given time and space to be itself, in all its coldness and helplessness.” (37)
This leads to a third observation about Holy Saturday: God’s vindication does not come immediately. There is a waiting period between the world’s verdict and God’s verdict, between the world’s condemnation and God’s vindication. If we were writing the story and were forced to include the death of Jesus, more than likely we would have resurrection just after the death. Once Jesus bowed his head in death it would pop right back up, and he would be alive in a transformed body, hopping off of the cross. God doesn’t do this. He waits.
The pallor of death is allowed to overtake Jesus, be seen by others, and mourned. Here is the end of sin. Here is the world’s verdict against God’s beloved Son. And, as at the cross, we wonder, “Where is God?” Has he really forsaken him? Has he really forsaken us? Why is he leaving him dead? Why is he not responding? We bombard heaven with prayer, knowing as in the Psalms that we are God’s people and in the right. But where is vindication? Are the ones who condemn us correct? Is not this corpse evidence as the world tells us that we are in the wrong? Are we fools for trusting in the word of God revealed in Jesus?
Living in Holy Saturday, when Jesus is in the tomb, we begin to understand that God’s vindication of us doesn’t always move quickly. Resurrection does not come immediately after death. From one perspective, our whole life is Holy Saturday. We constantly live between cross and resurrection. Our loved ones grow ill and die just as they have done for ages. They lie in tombs even now though they have been faithful. Faithful Christians around the globe suffer for the faith; husbands and fathers are ripped away from their families, mothers are torn from their children, children are orphaned through the death of their parents, people are maimed and tortured for the Faith. Yet God is seemingly silent, watching it go on as if he doesn’t care one wit what happens to his people.
Are we fools? We live in Holy Saturday, anticipating the resurrection but not yet experiencing it in history. We do what is right in other areas of life, yet God leaves us in the grave. We expect immediate reward for our faithfulness–our integrity that caused us to lose a job, our faithfulness to an unfaithful spouse or friend–yet God leaves us in the grave. Holy Saturday is, from one perspective, the life of the Christian who, in following Jesus, has taken up his cross and died. We believe and we know based upon the promise of God declared loudly in the resurrection of Christ that vindication is coming. But where we live in history is Holy Saturday.
Like all other aspects of the Christian life, Holy Saturday is a call to faith. We hold to the promises of God even in death … even in prolonged death … even when vindication in resurrection–whatever shape that takes–doesn’t look forthcoming.
In our Holy Saturday times, we must remember the words of Jesus. Death comes. But there is a promise of resurrection. What carries us through the tombs of this world and the experiences of death is the fact that the word of Jesus, now confirmed in the resurrection of his body, is that this is not the end. Death will have its end. Even though it is not yet, it will come.
Thanks, this is very encouraging.