And so on Holy Saturday, our Holy week comes to an end.
Our journey ends with Jesus laid to rest in a new tomb within the walled garden
of Joseph of Arimathea near Golgotha.
As we begin today, I want to reflect on the work of Paul
Zach as he writes about Holy Saturday.
After the cross has been carried
After the weight is laid down
After the body is buried
Down where the darkness surrounds
After the end of the violence
After the sky has gone dark
Now there is nothing but silence
Broken by the beat of our hearts
He's gone
After the last words are spoken
We lay him down in the grave
After our hearts have been broken
Have all our hopes been betrayed?
Here at the tomb with our spices
Love from our hearts is not gone
Watch 'til the breaking sun rises
What will we see in the dawn?
As we listen to Luke Parker, sing Sweet Surrender,
let us take a moment to appreciate the freedom that comes on the death and resurrection of
our Lord. The full presence that we have from the sweet surrender that Jesus
Todays reading comes from John 19:31-42
it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special
Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the
crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and
the bodies taken down. 32 The soldiers therefore
came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and
then those of the other. 33 But when they came to
Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 Instead,
one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden
flow of blood and water. 35 The man who saw
it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he
tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. 36 These
things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his
bones will be broken,”[c] 37 and,
as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.”[d]
Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a
disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With
Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. 39 He
was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at
night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five
pounds.[e] 40 Taking
Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of
linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41 At
the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a
new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42 Because
it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was
nearby, they laid Jesus there.
Holy Saturday is a time of both absence and presence. Still
your body and mind as you invite Jesus to be with you in this midway place.
Asking for the courage to stay in the ‘valley of the shadow of death’. how have you been able to sense God’s presence during this challenging week?
What thoughts, desires or feelings have arisen within you as you prayed with
this week’s Scripture passages?
Many Christians bypass Holy Saturday, leaping from the sorrow of Jesus’ death to the triumphant celebration of his resurrection. The church's ancient creeds invite us not to do that, but to stay with a sense of his absence, as his disciples felt it. Why do you think that is? How does the story of Jesus’ suffering and death leave you feeling?
Lord Jesus, on this holy day of quiet rest, we await your
resurrection, but we don’t want to rush by; we want to wait beside you in that
Music by Luke Parker, Salt of The Sound, Dear Gravity, Simon Wester.
