Easter Saturday: Waiting

This is a strange day in the church’s year.  A day caught between the sorrow of Good Friday and the joy of Easter morning.  A day to remember.  A day for reflection for all who are caught in between times.  We have several children’s bibles, and one, the Big Picture Story Bible has a chapter for Easter Saturday.  I love the text of this particular chapter especially because I think it captures how the disciples might have felt wonderfully.

Darkness fell upon the land.

Jesus was dead.
He was buried in a tomb.
A big stone was rolled in front of the entrance,
and the people all went home.
For Jesus’ followers, that dark day
was followed by a long night.

The hours passed very slowly.
Jesus’ friends cried.
They had thought he was the king.

But now their hearts were filled with sorrow,
and their minds were filled with fear.

“What happened?”
“Why did Jesus have to die?”
“Wasn’t Jesus God’s forever king?”

The questions kept coming until the next
day turned into night.

As Jesus’ followers tried to sleep, they thought,
We will be sad forever.

“Will God ever rescue his people from sin?”
“Will we ever have our place with him?”
“Will God ever bring again his blessings on
all peoples of the earth?”

There are Psalms written for these kind of times.  They are called ‘lament’ – a word that indicates a pouring out of the heart to God in grief, sadness and even anger.  The language used expresses the heart.  It isn’t always neat, tidy and precise – sometimes it is shocking to our ears (try Psalm 137), but it gives us permission that we can always take our feelings to God and express them (after all he’s not going to be surprised or shocked). One such Psalm is Psalm 88, which starts off on a note of hope, but from then on is increasingly dark until the last line (famously echoed by Simon & Garfunkel):

Lord, you are the God who saves me;
    day and night I cry out to you.
² May my prayer come before you;
    turn your ear to my cry.

³ I am overwhelmed with troubles
    and my life draws near to death.
⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
    I am like one without strength.
⁵ I am set apart with the dead,
    like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
    who are cut off from your care.

⁶ You have put me in the lowest pit,
    in the darkest depths.
⁷ Your wrath lies heavily on me;
    you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.^[d]
8 You have taken from me my closest friends
    and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
⁹     my eyes are dim with grief.

I call to you, Lord, every day;
    I spread out my hands to you.
¹⁰ Do you show your wonders to the dead?
    Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
¹¹ Is your love declared in the grave,
    your faithfulness in Destruction^[e]?
¹² Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
    or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

¹³ But I cry to you for help, Lord;
    in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴ Why, Lord, do you reject me
    and hide your face from me?

¹⁵ From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
    I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
    your terrors have destroyed me.
¹⁷ All day long they surround me like a flood;
    they have completely engulfed me.
¹⁸ You have taken from me friend and neighbor—
    darkness is my closest friend.

Psalm 88

At different times everyone lives in such times.  We may wish we had not seen such times, but as Gandalf points out in the Lord of the Rings so do all who see such times.

“Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.”

That is the note of hope we have as those who know the next day in the story.  And for all the implications of that to dawn in our world we wait.