Holy Saturday

March 31, 2018

From a rollicking Easter egg hunt this morning to an enormous tree crashing through our daughter’s barn this evening, it’s been quite a day. The sun was bright, the couple dozen kids and their parents had a great time; it was a morning filled with smiles, good food, and great friends. The afternoon I spent studying Ecclesiastes as part of the teaching I’ll be doing in Cuba. Turns out, the study is a timely framework for the tree that has Jessie’s barn leaning like a drunk hanging onto a lamppost. 

Ecclesiastes is a rather cynical (or if you prefer, realistic) view of life. “Time and chance happen to all,” the author states. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Life is unpredictable, and if we limit our observations and ruminations to the boundaries of birth and death, it’s pretty hard to make sense of it all. It is meaningless, empty, vain, a chasing after the wind. It’s the wind that brought the tree down on our daughter’s barn instead of her neighbor’s garage. He felt lucky; it was his tree, but her barn. Jessie and Todd’s faithful living didn’t spare them; we are grateful no one was hurt, but she is grieving the Christmas ornaments that were crushed. 

Things like this serve little purpose if this world and life is all there is. Life isn’t fair, justice often is not served, so as Christians, we place our hope in that which is eternal, and that is centered in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Good Friday and Holy Saturday (today) recall the worst that this world can throw at us, and the often difficult waiting before the resurrection breaks all the old molds with the promise of new life. 

No one likes going through Good Friday’s. No one enjoys the waiting and wondering of Holy Saturday. But tomorrow is Sunday, and not just any Sunday; it is Easter, and the cry will reverberate throughout the world: “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!”