Living Holy Saturday

I appreciate and relate to James Martin’s perspective that we live in Holy Saturday …

Most of our lives are spent in Holy Saturday. In other words, most of our days are not filled with the unbearable pain of a Good Friday. Nor are they suffused with the unbelievable joy of an Easter. Some days are indeed times of great pain and some are of great joy, but most are in between. 

We are an Easter people, to be sure but also a Holy Saturday people.

Most of our days are, in fact, times of waiting, as the disciples waited during Holy Saturday. We wait. We wait for the right opportunity, the right person, the right situation. We wait for the answer, the results, the next open line, the best deal, the weight loss. We wait for leadership and direction, for strength and courage, for understanding, for forgiveness, for acceptance, for healing, for improvement.

Living in Holy Saturday prompts us to an active waiting … a waiting also known as HOPE. We know that even in the most difficult situations, when things are dark and bleak and seemingly hopeless, God is powerfully at work and in control. Unlike the disciples on the actual Good Friday, we know about Easter when Jesus rose from the dead and is now living with us. We know that nothing is impossible for God. So we wait … we wait with faith and hope and love. We wait because change is always possible. God’s plan is to give us hope and future — He makes all things new.

So we wait and fully live with a “Holy Saturday” assurance that HE RISES.

(Image: The Two Marys Wait by the Tomb, by James Tissot.)