Easter is my very favorite holiday. It's above Christmas and Valentine's Day and the Fourth of July and my birthday (my next favorites). I love everything about Easter... the time of year, the traditions, the matchy-family pics, and the depth of the reason for the day.
Easter this year is .... quite a lot different. No families will gather, meals will look and feel different, there is fear and dread in the air, a sense of uncertainty, and, at least for us in the south, there is now apparently a very high risk of severe weather and a tornadic outbreak that could rival that of 2011. Just in case the whole global pandemic thing wasn't creating enough fear and uncertainty, I guess... ;)
I wrote a few years ago here about Saturday. And I still absolutely view Saturday in the same way that I did back then, that empty, scary, void "middle" when you question your understanding of what was supposed to happen and how, and you just feel so desperate and heavy.
This year, our church used an app called "EasterNow" (which I highly recommend) and it walked us through the chronology of Holy Week. What I am about to admit is pretty embarrassing, especially for someone who is pretty connected to Jewish studies and has spent a decent amount of time in Israel, but... here it goes:
I had never, until this year, thought about Saturday being Shabbat, or the Sabbath.It had simply not occurred to me that the day after Jesus was crucified was the day of rest.... the holiest day of the week. I had always just thought of it from my Christian perspective and imagined His resurrection on the Sabbath, on the sunny and beautiful Sunday morning.
In last night's reading, they mentioned the need to get the body off the cross before Shabbat started, and that's when I really started to realize what that meant.
See, Jesus's followers were Jews who had been converted to Christian teaching, but they most certainly still observed many Jewish customs at that time, and Sabbath would absolutely be one of them. I don't know how much you know about Shabbat to Jews, but, um... it looks a lot different than it does to Christians. Our Sunday is often one of the busiest days of our week. Shabbat is... the exact opposite of that.
I remember my first Shabbat in Israel, they warned us to get any food we would need before sundown because nothing would be open. I remember the frantic rush in the market, the energy in the streets before sundown. I also remember thinking that probably they just meant NOT MUCH would be open. I also remember being ridiculously hungry the next day and dining on my Little Debbies and Pringles I brought from the good ol' US of A because not even the little convenience store across the from the hotel was open. NOTHING. I realized I could probably get dinner that night, since sundown ended it, so I asked someone what time the cafe down the street opened. The answer? "When three stars are visible." Um. ok. I waited till the shadows were long and walked down... no dice. Went back to the hotel, then went back when it was was somewhat dusky... nope. Still closed. Third time was the charm, they were open and I got to enjoy the pizza that I ate for dinner NO LESS THAN EVERY NIGHT OF MY MONTH IN ISRAEL EXCEPT ABOUT THREE. ;)
Anyway, all that to say, Shabbat means STOP. FULL STOP. Shabbat elevators in Israel stop on every floor so that no one needs to do the work of pushing a button. No one does anything that could be considered work. Neighborhood synagogues exist so that people can walk to them and not drive. It's a full commitment.
So what does this have to do with my Saturday thoughts? Well, that means that on that dreadful day after Jesus breathed His last, the day before the day, the one where He walked again.... There were no distractions. There was no work. There was no opportunity to step away or look away from their present circumstances. Jesus's followers had no option but to sit in their grief. To dwell in it. To feel it. It surrounded them like the graveclothes surrounded Him, wrapping them in its heavy sense of loss. Grief makes an unwelcome companion, but it was the only companion they likely had on that day as many of them were in hiding, alone and scared. I read in Lysa Terkeurst's book It's Not Supposed to Be This Way tonight and she said, "Where the enemy can isolate, he can influence." Saturday was a day of isolation for the followers of Christ. It was a day they were susceptible to influence by the enemy.
Saturday. A day that I have seen frequently this year being called "Silent Saturday". A day in which the traditions and circumstances required the followers of Jesus to fully feel and sit in their sorrow. I think I have discovered a whole new set of lessons this year from Saturday, and those lessons confront my own desires to distract from the pain and to quickly dig and search for meaning, for the upshot, for the silver lining. Those things are all there, and Sunday will come. But in the Saturday season, the grief is meant to be felt.
For us in the 2020 world right now, it feels a lot like a Saturday season. We want Sunday to come immediately, we keep looking for it, and it will. But the losses, the griefs, the sorrow, the fear, the longing, the uncertainty, the dread of this time.... we can (and should) feel it too. It has a purpose, and sometimes that purpose is simply to exist.