The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter has always felt somewhat nondescript to me. We do nothing much in particular. I probably spend most of my time in the kitchen prepping resurrection rolls (a tradition at our house) and baking lemon meringue pies (a recent but here-to-stay dessert for Easter lunch).

Holy Saturday hasn’t felt especially sacred. Our church usually encourages us to fast and pray in our small groups on Good Friday. And Easter is a joyous celebration when we all sound peculiarly old-school when we say, “He’s risen indeed!” But Saturday? That day appears characterless, something we rush past because it doesn’t seem to hold distinct meaning.

In recent Instagram posts for Good Friday, the trend seems to be to put up a picture with the caption, “It’s Friday—but Sunday’s Coming.” I absolutely love that quote as it points to the irresolute hope we have because of the resurrection of Jesus. But I do believe it’s good to pause and ponder that Sabbath Saturday, that hyphen between Friday and Sunday, because God created that day with intention.

Perhaps, on this day, when Jesus entered the solitude of death we are invited to embrace the silence of the Sabbath.

In the book of Luke, the women in the narrative who had come with Jesus from Galilee saw his body laid in the tomb. These grieving women went home and prepared spices and perfumes for the body as was the Jewish custom. The text then goes on to report, “But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.” (Luke 23: 56).

Did Jesus give them—and us—that in-between Sabbath to usher in the space we need to rest and perhaps even enter the uncertainty of the in-between?

Don’t we have those days of waiting and moments of not knowing sprinkled through our lives? We all have Saturdays where things seem like they’ve come to a confusing and unplanned dead end. That Holy Saturday was perhaps marked by bewilderment and fear for Jesus’ followers. They probably had more questions than they had answers. Their hearts were heavy but heaven seemed silent. And the story seemed to come to a tragic end.

But we have the joyful privilege of knowing the entire story. So we don’t have to rush past Saturday. We can embrace the uncertainty of the in-between. We can sit with our sorrows. We can dwell in the tension of unresolved endings. We don’t have to gloss over our grief. We don’t have to pretend the pain doesn’t exist. We don’t need to pull out all the answers to every question.

Holy Saturday gives the moment to ponder the darkness of death and waves of grief that follow. It gives us the space to rest and respond to the love of Jesus on the Cross. Have we allowed the Man of sorrows who was acquainted with grief to sit with us in our valleys of loss and uncertainty?

This Holy Saturday may we stop to consider that sometimes heaven seems silent in the midst of our darkest times. But the story is not done. Saturdays are not a period but merely a comma or perhaps a holy hyphen in our lives. May it be an occasion to glorify God and sing, “Once again, I look upon the Cross where You died.” May it be an occasion to glorify God in the midst of the uncertain and the tension of the unresolved because He writes the story and turns seeming tragedy into triumph.

The empty tomb becomes all the more poignant and powerful as we pause and ponder in the silence of Saturday.

 

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