Knox Holy Week 2020 Devotional - Day #7: Holy Saturday
John 19:38-42
“Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.”
Today is Holy Saturday, the day between the horror of Good Friday and the joy of Easter. This day is quiet, Jesus is dead, the crowds are dispersed, his suffering has ended but the grief for his friends and followers has just begun. We are used to the image of an empty grave, but on Holy Saturday all is still and the grave has a body in it. It feels as if God’s rescue plan has failed. The Roman oppressors are still in power, the sick and poor are still sick and poor, the disciples are scared and hiding. We know what happens next, but they didn’t.
I often feel like we live in a Holy Saturday kind of a world. Certainly we have the advantage of knowing Jesus is in fact risen and that he did usher in the Kingdom of God and that salvation is real and that the Holy Spirit is with us. But the sick and poor are still sick and poor today, there are still evil people in power in many places today, and sometimes the followers of Jesus today get scared and hide. We are still waiting for the fullness of God’s Kingdom, the time when there will be no more tears and no more illness. If we have doubts, they are about why if Jesus defeated death do we still have to face death and despair? Our questions are about how long we have to wait for Jesus to return. Our hope is in eternity, the future fulfillment of shalom, but our present can seem very Holy Saturday-y indeed.
That space, the not-yet between what Jesus completed on the cross (our salvation, our full reconciliation to God and each other) and it being fully worked out when Jesus returns and we finally experience the restoration of all things to God’s right-way of being is a tension filled space.
While we do celebrate with whole hearts on Easter, testifying to the ways big and small that God does move in our world today. We also hold space for lament, for the honest cries of our hearts: “why allow all this suffering God?”. Lament is a good and Biblical practice, it’s how we can exist in this not-yet time of history when we know what salvation means while also longing for it to be completely revealed when Jesus returns.
So we pray, come Lord Jesus, come.
PRAYER PROMPTS
Pray Psalm 22.
Pray for the global church as they prepare to celebrate Easter, for protection and for provision for all the different types of services, celebrations and gatherings that will happen on Sunday.
