Saturday in Holy Week – in between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, it seems like just a placeholder. Why then does the Church call it Holy?
On the Friday we call Good, our Lord laid down his life for us; went to the Cross in love, and there took on all the weight of the world’s sin, and death too, all for us. He died. His heart was pierced by the centurion’s spear, and blood and water poured out. His lifeless body was taken down, covered in blood and sweat, cradled in his mother’s arms, and then, hastily, wrapped up and placed in the tomb.
And there in the tomb he lay: in utter passivity, in the complete helplessness of death, resting with absolute and complete trust in his Father who would raise him on the third day.
And so, let us not rush ahead to Resurrection Sunday. Our Christian life is full of waiting on God, and trusting in His timing, but waiting is difficult. Let us wait with our Lord.
The Christian life is also, very often, difficult. Let us wait with our Lord, and remember that there is no place that he cannot find us: no pain too intense, no depression too dark, no weakness too complete. I do not need to reach up to him (I may not have the strength). I may not even have strength enough to hope or wish for him to come to help me. But there is no depth of weakness too deep for him.
The unshakeable fact is that our Lord has gone before us, and opens up the way to lead us through. Not around, but through.
He knows what it is to be helpless, for he lay helpless in the tomb, that Holy Saturday. He knows what it is to trust entirely and absolutely to another, for so he trusted himself to the Father. He has been there; he knows the way.
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