by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM – for March 26, 2016
Holy Saturday. The in-between time. Still reeling from the events of the Friday we call “Good,” and living with uncertainty: will rising and new life ever come?
It seems to me that not enough attention is paid to Holy Saturday and to the Holy Saturdays of our lives. The times in-between. The times when conclusion and completion can’t be imagined. The times of standstill, of feeling stuck, mired, unmoving. The times when we struggle not to surrender to despair. The times of waiting. And waiting. And more waiting.
In Hebrew, the word for “wait” means to hope for, to anticipate. It’s always an active process, where life is never static but evolving, even though it may seem that absolutely nothing is in motion. Often a profound uncertainty, perhaps anxiety, accompanies waiting. After all, much of our society demands the tangible and concrete and prefers haste and speed when it comes to results and outcomes. Our world can be very impatient and unappreciative of what is hidden, what is in process.
Holy Saturday invites us into a profound appreciation of these edges that today we might call liminal places, places that are in-between, unfinished, in the middle. Places that are neither here nor there, such as the point where the wave meets the shore and where it’s not fully either wave or shore. Places where night is turning to day and it’s not yet completely either dark or dawn. Places like bridges, for when we’re crossing a bridge, we’re neither at the beginning nor the end. We’re somewhere in-between, in that middle space of unknowing.
These edges seem to hold the essence of Holy Saturday. They’re very challenging spaces to live in, especially for any of us who like things to be defined, who like to be in control, who like to know exactly where we’re going. They’re at the heart of the Paschal Mystery, that process of dying and death, of entombment and silence, of new life rising up.
Often these edges are where we don’t want to be—more questions than answers, more uncertainty than clarity, more middles than conclusions. The remnants of Good Friday but not any of the astonishment and revelation of Easter morning. But these edges are spaces and places where God is especially near. Places of Mystery and becoming. Places of what is not yet, what is still to come, filled with blessing and potential. Places where life is unfolding.
What’s called for in the edges is active waiting. What’s called for in the edges is trust in a God who will not abandon us. What’s called for in the edges is deep listening and paying attention to this same God.
In “Between Lives,” Brian Andreas of Story People describes the wisdom that’s needed in these edges:
“Today, I’m in the exact place
in between two lives
& you may ask which I will choose,
unless you’ve been in the in-between place before
& then you know to simply sit quietly
until your life chooses you.”
I’ve come to believe there are some lessons that can be learned only when we’re in this waiting time in the edges. One of those lessons, observes Joe Nangle, OFM, is a profound and heightened sense of solidarity, a waiting in the tomb with our world, “where our hearts nestle among the yearnings of those who wait. We taste the desire of those who live in deprivation. We are bruised by the wounds of those who are imprisoned by injustice, fear and oppression. We grope in the darkness of those overcome with despair.” (Following Jesus on the Way to Calvary, Pax Christi USA Lenten Reflection, 1997).
How will we wait? On this Holy Saturday and all the Holy Saturdays of our lives, may we remain in solidarity with our beautiful, yet wounded world. In this place where so much is uncertain and in process, may we be open to all the learnings of this waiting time. May we be bearers of hope and resurrection for ourselves and others.
Wishing you all the blessings and new life of this Easter season to come!
Takeaway
Wait with Jesus in the tomb.
What does this waiting feel like? Look like? Sound like?
For what, for whom, are you waiting at this moment?
Give thanks for what might be rising to new life in your heart, seen or unseen.
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