Holy Saturday: Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday

I remember the first time I really celebrated Holy Week.  I had attended Good Friday services, went to sleep that night and woke up on Holy Saturday.  I looked outside in my hometown and noticed how unusually quiet it seemed.  I spent the day before remembering and meditating on something that happened that was just awful.  Jesus had been crucified.  But now, today on Holy Saturday it was quiet.  It was as if the whole world was hushed waiting for something wonderful to happen.  The feeling is very much like waiting for the best part of the movie to begin.  Indeed, the best is yet to come.

Today feels like the day after a terrible experience.  Our ears may be hurting from the noise of the crowds or all the phone calls that were filled with bad news.  For many people going through difficult times this kind of day is for us.  It is the day when everything that happened yesterday just stunk.  Tomorrow has not happened yet.  We remember how our pay check didn't come in yesterday and now we are wondering how the rent will get paid, or the children will get fed.  We called and argued out of our anxiety and worries, but things just did not happen the way we had hoped.  We need someone to lift us up and give us back some sense of happiness. 

As lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people we get so tired of all the anti-gay rhetoric that plagues our community.  Every conservative religious junkie has to insert their opinions into our business and keep us from gaining our equal rights.  The religious right uses the events of Holy Week to justify how they cause separation within families over the issue of sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression.   Those same individuals also like to use the events of this week to justify anti-Judaism.  The religious right suggests to LGBT people that the only way to be saved is to change from being LGBT.   The same religious right likes to suggest that the only way the Jewish people can be saved is to become Christians. Such rhetoric is full of Spiritual violence that is also crowded with self-justification for those who think they are doing so for a noble cause.  We get so tired of people using the death and resurrection of Jesus as their excuse for prejudice, violence and reckless behavior.

Today, Jesus' body laid in the tomb.  It seemed like the end of all that people had hoped for over the years.  All that healing, preaching, feeding, had appeared to have gone to waste, was how many were feeling.  Was it really the end? Was there anything more that God could do?  Tomorrow on Easter Day, God will answer that question.  Tomorrow is another day.  God is not finished with us today.  There is still something else totally unknown to us that God can still yet do tomorrow.  As we wait today, can we wait in silence for God to bring about a great finale?  Can we believe that God has yet to do God's greatest work?  Today, can we set aside the violence that comes from prejudice and malice to await what God is going to do on Easter? 

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for Holy Saturday, Book of Common Prayer, Page 283).