Holy Saturday 2021

 Holy Saturday • 3 April 2021

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Job 14.1-14; Psalm 130; 1 Peter 4.1-8; Matthew 27.57-66

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Just as I cannot imagine moving directly from Palm Sunday to Easter without going through the daily services of Holy Week, nor can I imagine jumping from Good Friday to Easter, without pausing for Holy Saturday. Indeed, this day until sunset invites us to linger just a while longer in this strange space between Christ’s death and resurrection. I always had to beg the altar guild to give me just a little more time in the emptiness of the church, now a tomb, lonely without the reserve sacrament, before plunging into Easter preparations. (I never prevailed.)

The office for Holy Saturday is stark: no opening greeting, just a prayer,  two or three readings, a psalm, a hymn from the Burial Office, the Lord’s Prayer and a finally blessing. 

One might think the readings are a downer. The reading from Job begins:

A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble,
comes up like a flower and withers, 
flees like a shadow and does not last. 

One is better off being a tree which, when chopped down, will sprout new shoots, than to be a mortal that will die and be lain low. The writer wonders finally: 

If mortals die, will they live again?
 All the days of my service I would wait 
until my release should come.

The response, Psalm 130, counters the gloomy reflection by professing confidence in God:

I wait for the Lord: my soul waits for him:

in his word is my hope.

With him there is plenteous redemption,

and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

The gospel relates how Joseph of Arimathea goes to Pilate, asks for Jesus’ body, takes it to his grave and places it in there. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary are there, sitting at the tomb. Later Pilate will order that a stone be placed in front of the tomb so that Jesus cannot escape.

Then the congregation responds with a hymn from the Burial Office, also from Job: 

In the midst of life we are in death;
from whom can we seek help?

From you alone, O Lord,
who by our sins are justly angered.

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So many of us have experienced that strange time between a person’s death and their burial. It is time out of time, an agonising form of waiting, one of nervous energy, on the one hand, and emptiness for what and whom we have lost, on the other. 

That is where we find ourselves in the journey toward Easter. Jesus is dead and in the grave. We will not celebrate his resurrection until after sunset tonight or before sunrise tomorrow, if we keep the vigil or tomorrow morning. We wait.

The church traditionally marked today as the Harrowing of Hell, when Jesus descended to the dead.
Every Holy Saturday, I have read from an ancient homily on the holy and great Sabbath, which describes Jesus’ descent to the dead. 1

The homily begins: 

Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

The homily then describes Jesus’ search for Adam and Eve, ‘he who is both God and son of Eve,’ to set them free. God says that God did not create Jesus to be a prisoner in hell. ‘Rise, let us leave this place,’ God cries, ‘for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.’ The story of salvation unfolds in poetic form with the voices between God and Jesus intermingling.

The homily concludes, ‘Rise, let us leave this place.’ Humanity will never return to the first paradise, but will, instead, be in heaven with God. ‘The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you for all eternity. 2

I cannot say this last paragraph without tears, even after 25 years of reading it out loud in this office. Why? Therein lies all my hope: ‘The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you for all eternity.’ That is where you and I are headed and where our loved ones no longer with us already are.

The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you for all eternity.’

For a moment, linger in the wonder of that simply sentence. Think about those moments when you have touched the sense of eternity. They exist. And marvel that that promise is what this whole week’s journey has been about.


NOTES
1 http://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20010414_omelia-sabato-santo_en.html
2 Howard Galley, The Prayer Book Office (NY, NY: The Seabury Press, 1980), 735-37.