The church calls today Holy Saturday. Even in normal times it is a day without a clear pattern. Good Friday has passed and we await the future. We are privileged to know that Easter awaits us. Not so the first disciples.
For them who have seen, or heard about, Jesus dying on the Cross there is gloom and despondency. The future looks bleak – even dangerous, because friends of Jesus could be targeted next. And there was the grief of losing a beloved leader. Where is the buoyant hope and expectation which Jesus had brought with him? Where was all the palm waving and celebration of a few days before when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey?
For us today we catch something of the ‘waiting in uncertainty’ aspect, something of the sadness and grief.
It is bad enough for everyone in the lockdown who feels a sort of insecurity and uncertainty for the future. It is infinitely worse for those who have lost loved ones to the virus, and who now grieve their loss, and ask themselves why it had to be their wife/partner/spouse/child/family member/friend who was taken. Then there are those who anxiously wait - at a distance - to see whether their loved one will recover. Not forgetting the NHS staff who toil in sweaty and hazardous conditions tending their patients wondering when the nightmare will end.
So, in different ways, this Holy Saturday will speak to the circumstances of us all.
But Easter Resurrection and hope is near at hand. Hard to believe things could get better? Hard to believe that time could be so close? Even after the Resurrection several disciples couldn’t believe it!
We may not understand how the Resurrection happened. We have to see that as a mystery which is almost certainly beyond our human understanding. But it speaks eloquently of what we know in our hearts and minds must be true: that there is always renewal and new life and new hope in the wings. Even our Easter sunshine tells us that!
