Holy Saturday
“He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away.”
Matthew 27:57-66
April 20, 2019, Words By: Nic Hughes, Image By: Enjoy the Silence (Photograph by Thomas Leuthard)
Is it just me or does Saturday seem like a low point in Holy Week? I find myself wondering why Holy Saturday is even in the story. Was it really necessary to wait for the Resurrection? Maybe it is my own anxiety about the nature of God that makes Saturday feel so uncomfortable or out of place.
When I think of God I tend to think about the Cross, the Resurrection, Creation…I tend to see God as active and if I’m being honest, active on my behalf. I have a harder time “seeing” when God isn’t active, when God is absent from the story, or when God is silent. I find myself either looking forward to the Resurrection or back to the Cross….why is it so hard for me to be present in the silence of Saturday? Maybe it is because I am afraid to ask the question that comes in the silence: where is God?
As someone who is new to the Street Psalms community, I find myself in awe of the patience displayed by the leaders we serve when it appears God is silent. This silence that seems so unnerving to me, is a place where many deeply grounded leaders sit and inhabit and invite others to come and to listen.
Holy Saturday, for me, is the invitation to find God in what Scripture calls “the sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12). May we all have the eyes to see and also the ears to hear the sheer silence of God.
Can we trust, can I trust, that God is there as well?
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