Black Saturday

Today is Black Saturday of Holy Week. Jesus was crucified yesterday, and today His disciples are left to try to figure out what God is doing here. It’s a day when the churches that celebrate Holy Week hold a special vigil.

Today, I am reminded again just how much the COVID-19 pandemic has put the days of Holy Week and Passover into clearer focus. In my state, many people are afraid. Our governor has extended the lockdown order until the end of the month, when it was originally set to expire on Monday. In addition, she has added a bunch of executive orders that crack down even harder on people’s civil liberties and rights as US citizens. All done, of course, in the name of public health and safety. We are unable to gather in our church buildings to celebrate Easter. We were unable to gather together in those buildings to take communion and celebrate Good Friday as well. For some people, this is a time of intense anxiety and a sense of general chaos going on in the world around us.

And that’s exactly how the disciples felt today. Jesus had been crucified. He didn’t call down angels to save Himself and set up the Kingdom of God here on earth. He didn’t even defend Himself at trial. Peter had denied Him three times in the moments leading up to the cross. Mary, His mother, was heartbroken. She had watched her son suffer and die an agonizing and humiliating death, and she more than anyone else knew that He was the Son of God. Yet, He was gone. Now the disciples gathered together in fear. Would they be next? Would a group of temple guards or Roman soldiers come to kill them as well? What about Jesus’ teachings about who He was? What had all those Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah meant?

We have the benefit of hindsight. You see, we know how the story ends. We look on the pain and agony and humiliation and darkness of Good Friday, knowing that Sunday is on the way. So we often gloss over the actual feelings of the disciples. We neglect to meditate on the chaos and the confusion and the complete abandonment they must have felt, and yet I know those feelings. Even as a disciple of Jesus, I know them. There are many times when I feel abandoned…when God seems silent. There are many times when He does not answer my prayer, or rather, He does not answer the way I want Him to answer or in the time frame I want Him to answer. Yet, He is there. I am not truly abandoned. It is dark and lonely from my perspective, but Sunday is on the way.

God never lost focus of Sunday. He wasn’t silent. He wasn’t absent. He wasn’t negligent. He wasn’t idle, either. God was still working. God IS still working. Even when it’s dark. Even when we feel abandoned. Even when it seems as if the world around us is consumed by utter chaos, and we have no idea what God is doing, He is working. He has a plan, and that plan is coming into focus, even as our own focus is completely lost.

There are lots of theological discussions about what happened between the time Jesus died and the time He raised from the grave. Maybe I’ll explore those at another time. I think this year, I’ll just focus on the day from the disciples point of view because that’s a point of view I can easily understand. As I sit today, sheltering at home, with chaos going on all around me, I will remember that this is exactly how they felt, not knowing what was going on or what would happen next. Just as then, the world as I know it is suddenly upended, and I can not see what God is doing. But I know something they did not know. I know Sunday is on the way.

As the world around me rushes around and panics, I will choose the path of faith. Faith that God is here. Right now. Faith that God is working. Right here. Right now. Even though I can not see what it is that He is doing. He has a plan. A wonderful, marvelous plan that is even greater than anything I could ever hope for or imagine. Just like then. The disciples thought it was all over. Jesus was dead. Life was over. Their hopes…their dreams….gone. Just like that. But God was saving the entire world. The entire human race from the dawn of time to the end of time, saved and redeemed and set free in that one act of sacrifice. It was finished. They didn’t know it then, but I know it. I know it because I am on the other side of the Easter story.

One day, when this has run its course and life has assumed its new normal, that will be my testimony. I will stand on the other side of the COVID-19 story, and I will tell the world how God was moving even on the darkest days. I will testify to the wonderous work that God performed…the miracles He made out of chaos…because that’s who God IS. Just as the disciples would stand on the steps of the temple on the day of Pentecost and boldly proclaim what God had done on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, I will proclaim the work of God when I, too, am on the other side.

Friday is over……BUT SUNDAY IS ON THE WAY!!!