Holy Week 2023: Silent Saturday
Mortals, born of woman,
are of few days and full of trouble.
They spring up like flowers and wither away;
like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.
Do you fix your eye on them?
Will you bring them before you for judgment?
Who can bring what is pure from the impure?
No one!
A person’s days are determined;
you have decreed the number of his months
and have set limits he cannot exceed.
So look away from him and let him alone,
till he has put in his time like a hired laborer.
At least there is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
and its new shoots will not fail.
Its roots may grow old in the ground
and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth shoots like a plant.
But a man dies and is laid low;
he breathes his last and is no more.
As the water of a lake dries up
or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,
so he lies down and does not rise;
till the heavens are no more, people will not awake
or be roused from their sleep.
If only you would hide me in the grave
and conceal me till your anger has passed!
If only you would set me a time
and then remember me!
If someone dies, will they live again?
All the days of my hard service
I will wait for my renewal to come.
- Job 14:1-14
Job experienced tremendous loss and pain. He questioned God. He cried out in his devastation to God. He wondered if it would be better for him to be dead or even to have never been born. He wondered if there was any hope beyond the grave. Have you ever felt like Job?
Pray using the words Jesus taught us to pray:
“This, then, is how you should pray:
‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’”
- Matthew 6:9-13
On Silent Saturday of this Holy Week, we read the story of Jesus’ burial after his death on the cross. Imagine what emotions his followers must have experienced at the tragic and horrifying loss of their teacher and friend.
Read John 19:38-42.
What do you think was going through the disciples’ minds the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday?
To match the silence of Silent Saturday, there is no video to watch for today. This day represents an in-between time, what is known as liminal space. Liminal space is a transition period between two locations or states of being where we aren’t entirely sure how everything is going to work out in the end. Liminal space offers us a test, a test of our faith to see if we will trust God’s promises even when we cannot see how they could possibly be fulfilled.
When Jesus was arrested, tried, convicted, and executed on the cross, it meant, for the disciples, that Jesus’ ministry had ended in utter failure and defeat. If Jesus was the Son of the living God as Peter had declared in Matthew 16:16, where was God the Father? Why had he allowed his Son to die so horrifically? What did this mean for the future? Was the hope of salvation now a lost cause?
We don’t particularly enjoy liminal space. There are too many unknowns, and we grow restless as uncertainty lingers. However, these times of transition are fertile ground for faith to grow. Uncertainty asks us if we will have faith even when we cannot possibly see the way, even when it appears we’ve lost.
Today, resist the urge to skip ahead to Easter. Set aside some time to sit in silence with the disciples in their grief. Reflect on what it would have been like to be in their shoes.
What is this story saying to you? What needs to change in your life as a result of hearing this message about Jesus?
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.
- 1 Peter 4:1-6
Use the following Lamentation to reflect in silence on the pain of loss we face in this world:
I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of the Lord’s wrath.
He has driven me away and made me walk
in darkness rather than light;
indeed, he has turned his hand against me
again and again, all day long.
He has made my skin and my flesh grow old
and has broken my bones.
He has besieged me and surrounded me
with bitterness and hardship.
He has made me dwell in darkness
like those long dead.
He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
he has weighed me down with chains.
Even when I call out or cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer.
He has barred my way with blocks of stone;
he has made my paths crooked.
I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
- Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24
