The Most Underrated Part of Easter (Besides the Chocolate)
I’ll cut to the chase: its Holy Saturday.
I know…unless you’re part of a tradition who keeps vigil on Holy Saturday, nothing happens on Holy Saturday. Palm Sunday was full of celebration and high hopes for a miraculous victory. By Thursday, all of that hope was in the rear view mirror as Jesus had one last meal with his closest friends and family of choice, foreshadowing his death. They didn’t understand yet, but they would soon: by Friday, their candidate-elect and savior, the one who was going to turn everything around, was dead.
Not just dead, but killed.
Killed by the prevailing powers. Killed by ignorance. Killed by fear. Killed by “we’ve never done it that way before; he is different, so he must be crazy.”
Whew. What whiplash. One day, idealists think things might actually get better. Four days later, things look dramatically worse.
Side note: I find comfort in this when, in my own life, things change this quickly too…proof that it is not always hormones. :)
Yes, yes, yes, the story ends well. But when we just “jump to Easter”, we miss the very essence of the nourishing marrow the story offers: the part hidden beneath all of the action and human agency.
That marrow grows out of Holy Saturday. Holy Saturday: the actual and metaphorical time when there was nothing left for humans to do. The killers had killed, the mourners had morned, and Jesus was dead in a tomb, now part of history. It was finished.
You’ve been there: the marriage has run its course, the grown child lives differently than you would wish, our only way of coping has turned against you, the insidious and quiet demands of the moment finally capture and overcome you hunger for a truer purpose that would make you hearts sing…
We’ve tried everything there is to try, and its just over. Its finished.
And friends, that’s real.
We don’t want those times, and we by nature do everything we can to avoid or deny them, but those Holy Saturday times are real.
And, they’re terrifying.
And the message of Easter is that, when those times come, resurrection happens.
No, its not on your timetable.
No, you won’t be able to fathom how its even possible.
No, there is not a damn thing you can do ensure it.
But its coming.
I find it ironic that the very elusive, subtle mysteries and circumstances that the message of Holy Week is trying to address get buried by the more demonstrative gore and lilies and even harmful theology at times. All things that we—humanity—have agency over. All things about us.
But the Easter message is that when our finite agency ends, something much bigger and truer and more powerful sets in, and resurrection happens.
We don’t know exactly how or why—its a mystery beyond formulation. Is it because we look squarely in the face of our loss, fully accepting its reality? Is it because we step out of the way, give up, wave our white flags of surrender? Is it something else entirely?
My guess is yes, yes, and yes.
I don’t know about you, but I deeply appreciate a faith construct that makes space for that quiet whisper of Truth that I so often know is there but that I can’t hear over my own planning and assessing and strategizing and organizing.
That quiet whisper says, “there is a place for our pain…and these pain places are Holy places too.”
That’s something that I know deep in my bones, but will spend a lifetime fully integrating into the rest of my being. In the mean time, a spirituality that takes our suffering—individual and collective—into account in ways that are more nuanced and rich than “suck it up, buttercup” or “well, you brought that upon yourself and therefore you deserve the consequences” is a crucial part of a faith that is True, helpful, and worthwhile. The Easter story isn’t the only vein to tap into these Truths, to be sure. But when properly framed, I know of none better.
And so, for all of the ways we experience the miraculous, grace-filled gift of resurrection, thanks be to God.
And, may it be so.