“as the essence of courage is to stake one’s life on a possibility, so the essence of faith is to believe that the possibility exists.” William Salter
Until today, I have never given too much thought to the Saturday of Easter weekend. In Christian traditions all the weight is on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Saturday was a moment of limbo, a time of sorrow, fear and the unknown. It was hope lost, and a great void between what had been, and the uncertainty of what was to come. The pathway was suddenly dark. We don’t talk about Easter Saturday, yet all of us will spend time there. It’s the fraught stillness between the hosanna and the hallelujah.
It’s when we suddenly notice that there is no place for us, this time, with the hopeful, happy people on their way to Sunday.
It’s when we realize we need a place to grieve and tend to our broken hearts. It’s where we retreat to heal, mend, forgive, detox, grow, engage and rid ourselves of bags packed full of things too heavy to carry any longer. It’s when we admit that we may not know what we expected, but it wasn’t this. It’s the place where emptiness and weariness win for a time.
It’s a place that frustrates and frightens some of your people, because you retreat there and they fear you will never emerge. They want you to snap out of it or get over it. They want you back in all the familiar ways. But it’s not a process to be rushed.
Easter Saturday is important and necessary. It’s where the broken blind allows the possibility of light. Giving space to our aching grief, longings and losses, is crucial if we ever hope to rise again. That which we don’t acknowledge changes us anyway. Naming it without shame, and processing it without time limits allows the change to be redemptive.
There is tremendous power in dark and nebulous Saturdays. They are a place to rest, to recover, but not to live. The point is holy transformation. It matters not whether you rise, emerge or claw your way out. What matters is, eventual renascence. Saturdays were made for this, however long it takes.
Resurrection is possible. Every week has a Sunday. You will know which one is yours.
Something to Shay 