GOOD FRIDAY
On that fateful Good Friday, so many years ago, the story had apparently ended. Whatever hopes Jesus of Nazareth had evoked in his disciples and those around him, are shattered. Remember the words of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24, 21): “We had hoped…..” They had hoped that this Jesus was the one who would set them free from the tyranny of Rome, and of the priests and the Rabbis. But that afternoon they had seen him hanging there on the cross, brutally killed for his attempt to create a new society. They saw him dead and buried. Hope had turned to despair.
HOLY SATURDAY
Holy Saturday is like a dead end, a time when nothing seems to be happening, when one sees no light at the end of the tunnel. Good Friday looks like the end of the story. But not really. The story will continue, although there is nothing to indicate that. There is only an aching emptiness, a painful silence.
But all that will change.
Holy Saturday is the in-between time – between something old dying and something new emerging. Holy Saturday is the time between the seed falling to the ground and dying and then germinating new life.
EASTER SUNDAY
Light appears at the end of the tunnel. Death is conquered. Despair turns to wonder. The silence and gloom of Holy Saturday is shattered in a blaze of glory. Out of darkness streams of colour break forth - in the dazzling brightness of the Resurrection.
There is death. But there is also re-birth.
As a popular song says, “there is sunshine after the rain, there is laughter after the pain.”
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When have we felt life to be a long, long Holy Saturday,
when we felt like we have reached a dead end – with no way forward, no light at
the end of the tunnel? …. And then surprised – at the happy turn of events?
