‘Holy Saturday’
Good morning…
on Holy Saturday. Today’s meditation is by Revd Prof Ian Bradley, Honorary Church of Scotland Chaplain…
Today is Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday, when Jesus was crucified, and Easter Sunday when he rose from the dead. It is in every sense an in-between time, a period of uncertainty and waiting. So it certainly was for Jesus’ disciples and followers who spent it in a state of dejection, grieving their lost friend and leader whom they were convinced was dead and gone.
This year Holy Saturday takes on a special poignancy as we, too, wait anxiously and fearfully for the lifting of the current lockdown and the abatement of the Covid-19 virus.
There is a long Christian tradition, not explicitly stated in the Bible but hinted at in verses in the first Epistle of Peter and the Letter to the Ephesians, that on this day Jesus himself went down into the realms of the dead. It is expressed in the line in the Apostles’ Creed ‘He descended into Hell’. The belief being expressed here is that Jesus himself went through the experience not just of dying but of being dead. His soul joined those already dead in order to bring them with him out of death and into eternal life.
So Holy Saturday, also known as Black Saturday, as well as being a time of uncertainty and darkness is, too, a day of deliverance from darkness and death and of promise of light at the end of the tunnel.
It is also the last day of Lent, the season in the Christian year which commemorates the forty days and nights of self-isolation that Jesus spent in the wilderness facing temptation from the Devil. We are now in our nineteenth full day of imposed social isolation in the United Kingdom. For some it will have been a not wholly negative experience, enabling reflection, reading, slowing down and re-thinking values and priorities. There is a long tradition in Christianity and other religions of mystics and holy men and women distancing themselves from others and retreating to lonely and isolated places to be alone with God and meditate. They include the desert fathers and mothers in Egypt and Sinai, Celtic saints with their beehive cells on remote, rocky islands, Hindu sadhus and ascetics in the Sufi Muslim tradition.
Whatever its spiritual benefits may be, social isolation is not much fun and most of us are probably by now wearying of it. The signs of Spring in the blossom and buds in our gardens and parks, which seem more vivid and welcome than usual this year, are pointers to the green shoots and rebirth that will appear in our lives and communities when the virus abates and the lockdown ends, as both science and faith assure us will happen.
The Easter Sunday message is that death and darkness are decisively vanquished and we need no longer fear them. This year that message perhaps still seems some way off. I suspect that many of us will not really feel able properly to celebrate Easter until the lockdown is over, the virus in retreat and the churches open again. Kwabena Opuni Frimpong, a Presbyterian minister and executive director of the Alliance for Christian Advocacy for Africa, has proposed that the churches in his native Ghana postpone the celebration of Easter Sunday this year until the end of the national lockdown currently imposed there. He points out that Easter is, after all, a movable feast, varying each year according to the lunar calendar, so that in principle its full celebration could be delayed until conditions allow for people to return to church. Many churches here will understandably want to mark Easter Sunday with virtual on-line services tomorrow but there is a strong case for having exuberant communal celebrations of its joyful life-affirming message when people can come together again.
Meanwhile as we wait in this in-between time on what will perhaps be a rather longer Holy Saturday than usual, there is much comfort to be had from an ancient homily for this day:
Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him – He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . ‘I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.’
I have added this image to Ian’s piece for our reflection:
Ken Cooke, Fourteenth Station of the Cross, Jesus Lying in the Tomb, St George the Martyr Church, Newbury
Tomorrow is Easter Day, and despite the suggestion Ian discusses from Kwabena Opuni Frimpong we are going to celebrate Easter in a chapel service tomorrow, online on Zoom. Following last week’s wonderful choral anthem recorded separately and sewn together by Claire, tomorrow we hope to see and hear the choir singing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah, with trumpet too. Organ scholars plan to continue the Handelian mood with the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. My sermon has the title Grace in the Wilderness. I hope you can join the service, which begins at 11 am. Just click on the link below and follow the instructions. As numbers zooming in have been rising over these weeks, we have upgraded our Zoom account to allow for 500 participants! We may not need that many, but you are welcome to forward this invitation freely. I have attached the order of service, and plan to share it on to your screen as necessary during the service.
Donald MacEwan is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Easter Day University Service
Time: Apr 12, 2020 11:00 AM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/665730235?pwd=M0VKQk56S2pFYThxOWh3WW5IODMxZz09
Meeting ID: 665 730 235
Password: 2chXe8
Wishing you every blessing this Holy Saturday.
Yours,
Donald.