Meditation for Holy Saturday

Upside Down yet Rightside Up: Holy Saturday
by Rev. Lance Armstrong O’Donnell, Pastor
St. Philip Lutheran Church and School
Chicago, Illinois

Holy Saturday
3 April, A.D. 2010
Dan 6.1-24; 1 Pet 4.1-8; Mt 27.57-66

The time was past for Joseph of Arimathea’s “quiet faith” in Jesus. Finally, he stepped forward, “honoring” Jesus by having Him placed in his own newly hewn tomb. There would have been many witnesses of Joseph’s display of faith, for a body is not moved or prepared by one person and rolling the stone in front of the tomb would have taken many men. Besides these, as Mark tells us, Mary Magdalene and other women witnessed all this, and stayed there, as faithful mourners, keeping watch over the tomb.

So too, in a sense, are we.

“In a sense” because we speak the Gloria Patri again today; “in a sense” because we remember Christ’s descent into Hell, where--as St. Peter tells us in chapter three--He went not for punishment but to proclaim victory over sin and death... we mourn “in a sense” because we live in the light of the Resurrection. We know the end of the story. We know that our Lord has shut the lion of death’s mouth. In that we rejoice today, but quietly...

Quietly we mourn, for to remember the tomb is to remember why our Lord was in the tomb. We mourn because we know what St. Peter so powerfully proclaimed in his great Pentecost sermon: “This Jesus, whom you crucified, God has made both LORD and Christ.” (Acts 2.36) Ultimately, we all must come to terms with this: Christ died because of me.

The women certainly know this: Mary Magdalene, the one from whom Jesus cast seven demons; Mary the sister of Lazarus, who prepared Jesus for burial by pouring perfume on Him and in a stunning display of faith and humility, wiped His feet with her hair. 

They know. We know.

And so, as in a peaceful visit to a faithful relative’s grave, we come. Here, though we know He is “raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,” we mourn a little and give thanks, like Joseph and the women, for having journeyed through Lent and Holy Week we have a greater appreciation for the cost of our peace.

Jesus lives. Thanks be to God.