A meditation for the Saturday before Easter Day
One of the great messages of Easter is 'Friday's here but Sunday’s coming!’ It might be interpreted to mean, ‘We may be going through hard times at the moment, but the time will come when those days have passed, and we will emerge into the light. And in so many ways that has been a real experience for most of us at some point in our lives.
But there is a forgotten day between Good Friday and Easter Day. A Saturday when most of us are so busy that we completely miss the message. The period of time in the Easter narrative when everything seems to have gone wrong, and nothing seems to be changing for the better. I once heard a young artist who had meditated on this theme call it ‘Black Saturday’.
Many people in our province at the moment feel that they are in the midst of a never-ending ‘Black Saturday’. It’s a period in which we go into a kind of numbed state, sensing only that our whole future has been blown apart, and there is nothing left. Some of enter into ‘Black Saturday’ with grief this year; some of us with poverty; some of us with unemployment; some with serious illness; some with the sense that terror could overtake us again in Northern Ireland; and some with deep depression.
There is no easy way through that period of darkness. It just happens. But there is One who experienced it when he was mercilessly put to death for us. Jesus. And on that in-between day he was actually at work bringing freedom to the ‘souls in prison,’ at a level beyond anything we could see. There was another reality going on behind the scenes, preparing to burst out of the tomb on Easter Day.
Let’s all stand with those in real pain this Easter, who just need someone alongside them. Let’s get to work bringing freedom with deeds of love and kindness behind the scenes. And then, look out for the signs of Resurrection. As surely as Spring has appeared, so will Easter Day! Sunday’s coming!
+ Harold
Click here to download Bishop Harold's Holy week meditations, 'The Wounds of Jesus'.