The shock of Friday has happened, but the hope of Sunday is coming!
While that may rightly preach in our Christian circles some two millennia after the historical events, as the Gospel accounts inform, what happened on Friday was presumptively interpreted as more than unexpected, and not so axiomatically good.
I love the humanity in the conversational tenor on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:17-24:
And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” (emphasis mine)
The line in bold is one that personally resonates whenever I consider this flow. It is almost like an audio recording inside. I can hear the intonation. And I feel the weight, especially in these words: “we had hoped.” This beginning portion has a much broader cultural application no matter whom it is directly referencing. Every person wants the happy ending. Every person hopes their saviour can save. If anything, this present moment should’ve only confirmed the inviability of all entirely created means.
We can’t create out of nothing when God has been almost entirely removed from culture’s repository or popular constitution.
At a larger range, it is easy to consider the three-day movement of the Easter narrative entirely through the two existential peaks on Friday and Sunday. That is totally understandable. This amounts to the cornerstone of the Gospel.
However, as 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 will confirm, these are no isolated peaks, but truly the summit, and yet still connected with a chronological bridge:
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (emphasis mine)
The reality of Saturday isn’t historically inconsequential, and not only because of what it follows, and where it leads!
There is something about the silence of Saturday that enquires my fascinations (Luke 23:56b). Maybe it feels more like normality. We know the high heady days come, go, and rarely return. And especially as we consider the majority of the Apostolic witness, which almost entirely fled Jesus once He was arrested (Matthew 26:56; Mark 14:50), we are encouraged to further identify with this specific.
When I think about what Saturday can project, I reflect on the period post my poppa’s death when I was about eleven—when mother and I stayed with nana to help her transition. The elevation of the funeral demands you rise to this occasion, but when everything has stopped, and everybody else has left—has moved on—the silence of an every-day Saturday can almost be deafening.
And hard to move on from, even when you know you must!
While the time period in the Easter narrative is comparatively condensed, as we consider our own modern pandemic moment, we can see how the events of Friday could quickly lead to some kind of cultural panic. Maybe some kind of frenzied shopping even, and for the entire weekend. However, Scripture affirms these first-century Jewish followers of Jesus faithfully continued their historic process, and observed the Sabbath. They effectively shut-down life, as had been their habit. I waver between that being both easier and more difficult after Friday.
If we now personally conceive right into the heartbeat of our own experiential day in the Easter of 2020, and where life is on lockdown, we can use this Saturday of Easter as a metaphor for our present experience of everyday. Life’s mobility that could’ve recently encouraged some type of previous escape—whether geographical or otherwise—means this isn’t presently possible.
The obvious question is how are you responding?
I am not meaning anything to do with your social distancing, even as this remains presently important.
I am asking whether any distance has cosmically internalised, and so become more existentially expressed throughout life?
Are you presently reclining in the perpetual Sabbath rest of the Gospel (Hebrews 4:9-10)?
And remember, just like the first-century followers of Jesus, this means the resurrected Son of God will keep finding you at His right time, because you’re always inside His bubble!
This should mean, no matter where you’re located on this Saturday of Easter 2020, you are not filled with panic, but confident assurance because you know about Sunday. And Sunday changes everything. The silence of Saturday was purposeful in the first-century. On April 11th, 2020, this remains as entirely true.
Therefore, don’t internally escape, but engage!
Thank God for Easter Saturday and rest in what it proves for each day of your today, and where tomorrow will make that categorical!