Holy Saturday Moments

Holy Saturday feels like one of the most human days in the Christian calendar. We understand so deeply, feel so acutely, the fear, the waiting, the distress, the questions, the utter despair.

We feel them because our lives are full of Holy Saturday moments.

The weight of grief sits heavy

The darkness presses in

Knees buckle as you look evil in the face and fear that it has finally won the day.

When it feels like hope has been snuffed out for good

That is a Holy Saturday moment.

The unexpected diagnosis of a loved one, given just months to live.

That is a Holy Saturday moment.

Reading details of sexual abuse and consequent cover-ups in corporations, churches, sports teams, and more.

That is a Holy Saturday moment.

A lost heartbeat on an ultrasound – the third in as many years.

That is a Holy Saturday moment.

Gathered in an overflow crowd of hundreds outside a church, at the funeral of a young couple, tragically killed on their holidays.

That is a Holy Saturday moment.

Watching marriages fall apart, destroyed by secrets and betrayal.

That is a Holy Saturday moment.

Thousands dying alone in makeshift hospitals, fear of infection preventing loved ones from holding hands and saying goodbyes.

That is a Holy Saturday moment.

Stuck somewhere between the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’, sometimes it feels as if we live in a Holy Saturday world.

Holy Saturday moments. The moments when we want to fast forward to Easter Sunday, for we know that hope is promised – it dwells just around the corner – and yet time and circumstances keep us tied to Holy Saturday far longer than is comfortable.

To name a time as a Holy Saturday moment is to lament. To admit that hope has gone, and to trust - as feeble as that may seem - that God's promises will be fulfilled.

Let us sit in this Holy Saturday – these quiet, dark, broken, painful 24 hours of wrestling and questions. Let us acknowledge today of all days, that we have had months – maybe even years – of Holy Saturday moments. Let us name them. Let us bring them to the foot of the empty cross, let us lay them outside the tomb of our Saviour.

And let us pick up our feeble, final bit of trust that God has not forgotten us, and stake our life on it. For the cross is empty, and soon the grave will be too.