Holy Saturday

            What do you do on Holy Saturday?  I mean, seriously, it’s not on anyone’s top ten list of high holy days.  After all, it’s somber.   Death seems to have won.  Jesus Christ’s body lies dead in the tomb, sealed behind all the power of Rome.  So, what do you do to commemorate such a day?

            Well, for one, you read Holy Scripture.  One of the lessons appointed for this day is Job 14.  In this chapter, Job laments his calamity.  He begins with the poignant words, “A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble.”  Wow!  What a happy beginning!  But one can understand where Job is coming from with all the tragedy that has assailed him.  Children dying, fortunes lost, health gone.  Terrible woe!  But Job makes an interesting turn 13 verses later.  He cries, “If mortals die, will they live again?  All the days of my service I would wait until my release should come.”

            Hmmm.  What an interesting statement coming from one who lived in a time where there was no belief in resurrection.  People believed, in Job’s time, that when you died, that was it.  You “slept” with your ancestors in the grave in a state called Sheol, while your body rotted away as a buffet for worms.   Not a pleasant destiny at all!

            But Job dares ask the un-askable question:  “If mortals die, will they live again?”  And this is the question for Holy Saturday.  It is the question that frames Easter itself.  It is the question that haunts our days, the flash that is our lives. 

            And the answer?  It comes from a strange place!  The reading from Lamentations for today:  “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’”

            That’s what we have on a day like today, the day our Lord’s body laid in the tomb:  “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.”  If it never ceases, then it does not cease when we fall down and mess up.  If it never ceases, then it does not cease when we face trouble or heartache.  If it never ceases, then it does not cease when there is war and violence.  If it never ceases, then it does not cease when we face disease and physical decline.  If it never ceases, then it does not cease if we face depression and anxiety.  If it never ceases, then it does not cease when our light is fading and our days are few.  If it never ceases, then it does not cease when we take our last breath and sister death comes and takes us by the hand to lead us to the other side.  If it never ceases, then it does not cease when we await the resurrection, when we stand for judgment, when we enter the fullness of the Eternal Kingdom of God.  The steadfast love never, never, never ceases!  And that is the Good News for a day like Holy Saturday.