Holy Saturday - YrA

It's my favorite day in the whole church calendar. It's the holiday of my ministry. It's the "I'm still alive. Shit, what do I do now?" day of the year. Really, this is where we all live our entire lives of faith - because while we know that Jesus rose - he hasn't come again. And after so very long, it's really as though he never rose anyway for most of us. I know more faithfully practicing agnostics than I do hard core resurrectionists  - mostly because to keep living in anticipation of the imminent destruction of the world makes you a little hard to have drinks and a lively conversation with.

No, I think most of us live most of our faith lives space between "absence makes the heart grow fonder" and "out of sight, out of mind." And that's OK. We live all of our lives, not just our faith or spirituality in this space. The world is so big and so busy and so amazing and so "ooh shiny" as we say in my house, that living in this very moment is nearly impossible. It is fleeting instances, which as soon as we notice, we have already moved out of. Probably Jesus did it - but he had to be God to do it. And even the gospels point out, likely for our own benefit, he knew what was coming. But I think that he probably lived in the moments much more like us than like some super hero. Why else, how else, could the Son of God cry out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me." Even Jesus could lose sight of the moment.

Holy Saturday is all about the space between. Can you even imagine all the opinions swirling around? There must have been a bumper crop in synagogue that day. "Finally, we can be done with that idiot Jesus." Son of God, yeah right." King of the Jews? Not likely." "Now, maybe all those nice boys will go back to work and take care of their wives and give me some grandchildren." "Maybe those women will get back to their real work now, instead of wandering around the countryside like a band of strumpets." Gossip, gossip, gossip.

And Jesus' followers. Well, I wouldn't be caught dead in synagogue after a night like last night. There is no way I am going to listen to the "I told you so" and "Now will you stop messing about like some kind of revolutionary and get back to your education, your family, your job." No freakin' way. There are depths of my own shame, pride and self-righteousness that I am not plumbing, especially with the matriarchs of my family and church. Sorry, I love you, but, no.

Here is the thing. Absolutely everyone in Jerusalem had to get up the next morning and think about how this impacted their lives. We got everyone involved. This was not just some internal Jewish matter - because as a subject people of the Roman empire they could not perform executions. If they could, I expect the Pharisees would have handled it as an internal matter. But they got everyone involved. They took something, someone, that the Roman empire didn't give a crap about, and made it a huge to do.

This is how the Romans got involved. This is how they got curious. We don't hear of a bunch of Romans traipsing about after Jesus during his ministry. But on Saturday, they get curious. And Jesus is on their radar, so in the subsequent days and weeks and months after Jesus' resurrection, this revolution is already on their radar. And having killed the trouble maker, it still isn't going away.

Here we are, on Saturday. The whole gamit of human emotion is swirling around on Saturday, as it is after the death of anyone. And these are the people I am called to - the resentful, the dazed, the confused, the irritated, the ones pushing against facts and the ones creating a fairy tale to take away the pain. The Lookie Lou's and the self-righteous I told you so's. These are all God's people, people trying to make meaning out of events that seem completely beyond their control, even when they consipred to make the event happen.

This is Saturday - this is the day we must make meaning for. Because this is the day that lasts nearly all the days of our lives.

(And this didn't get finished but I am going to post it up anyway, because I had company for breakfast and have company for dinner and was doing some Easter supper prep in between.)