We Can't Go Back—We Must Find Our Way Forward

I will never be the same again,

I can never return; I've closed the door.

I will walk the path, I'll run the race

And I will never be the same again.

—Hillsong United

As I write this, the COVID-19 quarantine is in its ninth week here where I live in Maryland. Many of us—including me—long for things to get “back to normal.”  We want to resume things we did before the pandemic.  My kids want to play baseball and softball.  We want to “go to church”—something our pastoral family used to take for granted as our routine every Sunday.  I want to watch sports on TV—any sports!  I want to go to Starbucks and enjoy the simple pleasure of a cup of coffee and enjoying my favorite “third space.”   Heck, we just want to give our loved ones living outside our home a big hug!  

In Maryland, Governor Hogan has declared that as of Friday May 15 at 5 PM EDT, Phase 1 of “reopening” the state may begin.  Honestly, whatever his motivation for doing so, I fear the Governor may be rushing things a bit.  Local authorities in several counties have been quick to indicate they are not ready to reopen.  

As a follower of Christ, I’m called to learn from Jesus how he would live my life if he were me.  Part of that means learning to discern whether something we’re legally allowed to do by the government is the best course of action for us to take.  The Apostle Paul admonishes the Philippians to look out not just for their own interests, but also for others—i.e., for the common good of all—Philippians 2:4.  In another letter, he reminded the Corinthians that: Everything is permissible, but not all things are beneficial­—1 Corinthians 6:12 and 10:23.  Paul was a Roman Citizen, which meant he had the “right” to do as much as anyone could in his day.  But, after his conversion, Paul realized that he answered to a higher authority than Caesar.  Even though he could do many things, he had to decide if he would do them.  He based his decisions on what was “best” for him as to as a follower of Christ and for those he was trying to influence to follow his example as he followed Christ.

When I take all this into consideration, I just can’t see Jesus (or Paul) jeopardizing other human lives just so they could get a coffee at Starbucks.  

So, as much as I long to eat out, or to get a long overdue “official” haircut, or whatever else it might be I wish I could do right now, I’m inclined to wait a bit longer—even if the authorities tell me “it’s okay” for me to do it.  Denying myself these things a while longer doesn’t cause me to suffer in any way, nor am I being persecuted unjustly by having to wear a mask when I do go out in public.  No, I’m merely being inconvenienced a little bit.  I’m choosing to sacrifice just a little of my personal freedom, to promote the health and well-being of all.  We would do well to remember Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), who suffered an excruciating death on a Roman Cross.  That kind of puts my “sacrifice” of going for a few months without a Starbucks coffee and wearing a mask when I go out in public in its proper perspective—Hebrews 12:1–13. 

In a devotional this week, I read: “Leadership is the ability to point out a way, direction, or goal… and to influence others towards it.” [1]  I see Jesus doing this with his disciples in John 14:1–9.  He told his friends he would be leaving them soon, but that they already knew the way to the place he was going.  As often happened, the disciples didn’t understand what Jesus meant. Thomas was never afraid to voice his questions, so he probably spoke on behalf of the whole group when he said: “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going.  How can we know the way?”  The response is well-known (although perhaps taken out of context): I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.  

Jesus showed his followers the way by being the Way.  As they followed the Way in the world, as they learned to live as Jesus lived, they found the way to the place he was going.  As Jesus said a few verses later: “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”  Or as Albert Schweitzer put it, “Example is not the main thing in influencing others.  It is the only thing.”

In a breathtakingly short amount of time, life as we knew it has been fundamentally changed because of this pandemic, in ways we are just beginning to understand.  The truth is, while we will eventually resume some of the activities we did before COVID-19, we’re never going back to exactly the way things were before.  (Really, can we ever really “go back” to the past?)  Step by tentative step, we must find our way forward together.  We have to figure out what the “new normal” will be in so many different arenas.  At our church, for example, we have a Relaunch Team that—with input from many others—will “point out a way” toward resuming activity in our church building for our congregation and other activities that take place in the building—and also will discern when the time is right for various activities to return.  In many other areas of “secular” life, we will need guides to “point out a way;” we need leaders who carefully discern the next steps, and influence others to follow.  

Ultimately, though, as followers of Christ we look to Jesus to “point out a way”—and we can count on him to do it, because he is the Way.  The way he points out likely won’t be the most convenient way we could travel or the easiest road we could choose to walk—but it will be the right way.   The Way we are looking for is standing in front of us.  Our choice is the same as it was for Thomas and the others: Will we recognize it—and choose to follow?  

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[1] Lowney, Chris, Make Today Matter.  Quoted in Sacred Space: The Prayer Book 2020 [2020, Loyola Press, Chicago, IL] “May 10–May 16,” p. 187,

A Poem for Hope During a Pandemic

Those of you familiar with my story know that today is what our family calls “Hope Day”.  It was twelve years ago today that our daughter Hope Marie passed from life support to life eternal.  This weekend is always bittersweet for our family, as we celebrate our twin’s birthday on May 2, and then remember Hope’s death just two days later on May 4.  I’ve written many entries on this blog telling that story that you can easily look up if you don't know the details.  In fact, the blog actually began when the girls were born.

The whole experience this year coincides with the corporate tragedy of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has had such a devastating impact on our nation and our world.  This year, we celebrated Rebecca’s birthday in quarantine on Saturday.  We made the most of it, but it certainly wasn’t how any of us expected to celebrate it. 

Now, today, we take our yearly solitary pilgrimage to Miranda Cemetery.  As Christ followers, we don’t really believe Hope is there, but we embark on this intentional journey each year to visit the stone that marks where her tiny body was buried nearly 12 years ago and honor our daughter’s memory.  We remember that Hope’s life—however brief—mattered immensely.  

During April, I participated in an online poetry workshop.  I do lots of writing, but poetry is certainly a growing edge for me.  It’s the language of the heart and I’m not as comfortable speaking it.  I’ve spent most of my life learning the language of the head, producing technical writing for NASA and essays on this blog.   Most of the time I access my heart indirectly, through my head, but poetry is meant to cut straight to the heart.  

We had a prompt every day during April.  I didn’t respond to all of them; in fact, I didn’t respond to all that many of them.  But I was pleased with the poems I did write.  I’d like to share one below.  There are two versions posted below.  Some of you heard the first version read aloud on as part of Good Shepherd UMC's online worship service on May 3.  The second version was a revised version that mixes rhyming couplets with free verse.  

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         Songs by Broken Heart

By Alan B. Ward

There is a tendency to sing

When we’ve lost everything.

When the whole cosmos seems wrong

Somehow humans continue our Song:

Exiles in Babylon.

Sing of the glory of Zion.

Calls for Hobbit songs as Gondor falls?

Surely Denethor must be enthralled!

Negro slaves back yonder

Lifted their cries to a God of wonders.

When Terrorists toppled the Towers.

Singing “God bless America” empowered.

As COVID-19 put the world on its knees.

Italians sang songs from their balconies.

  

To each a moment comes

When our world is undone.

To all under the curse

The chance to add our Verse.

To continue the song

When Wrong seems too strong

The lyrics we impart

Must be known by broken heart.

When our darling Hope died.

Without heaving a sigh.

From the depths of our soul

Came songs that consoled.

The NICU staff noted a grace.

That seemed out of place.

As at Golgotha, when Spirit’s breath

Blew through a place of pain and death.

God permeated that space.

Jesus wept with a human face:

And a flicker of Divine joy.

Entered our void.

What matters most.

When all other music is lost.

Is having well-known tunes—non-random

That you simply cannot abandon.

Then, even as tears rain down.

The depth of harmony will astound.

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Songs by Broken Heart

[Version 2.0] By Alan B. Ward

It seems human nature to sing

When we’ve lost everything.

We hear the voice of the exiles in Babylon.

Weeping by the river,

Mourning the life they’ve lost.

They play songs for their captors.

Praising the former glory of Zion.

We hear the voice of the African slave.

Lives uprooted, bought and sold like cattle.

Vital cogs in a racist way of life.

Toiling in Ole Master’s fields.

Singing songs of freedom.

These voices seem out of place,

Like Pippin singing his Hobbit song for Denethor

As Faramir embarks on his hopeless quest, 

Ast the White Tree drops its leaves,

And as the gates of Gondor shudder.

In times such as these the only lyrics we can impart.

Are those we know by broken heart. 

When Terrorists toppled the Towers.

And our Symbols lay in ruins.

We needed a song to sing together.

“God bless America” became a nation’s healing balm.

As COVID-19 places the world on its knees.

Italians sing songs from their balconies.

Voices on Zoom sing in four-part harmony.

Josh Groben sings from his shower.

Music mitigates misery.

To all under the curse

Will come the chance to add your Verse.

Twelve years ago.

I became the father of twins: Hope and Rebecca.

On the surface both were perfect.

But Hope was merely a shell.

“Twin-to-twin transfusion.”

“Catastrophic injury in utero.”

The autopsy states things so matter-of-factly..

But she was our daughter!

Darling Hope passed.

From life support to life eternal.

Just two days after birth.

No one saw it coming.

I’m a writer.

But all my attempts to say what that moment was for me.

Fall short.

But then: What can anyone say?!

I recall in those days.

From the depths our soul.

We felt melodies rising.  

Songs so embedded in us

We could not not sing them.

The NICU staff noted a grace.

That seemed out of place.

We baptized our daughter

As she lay dying.

Spirit’s breath.

Blew through that sterile medical place.

Death seems so final

But faith says we will see Hope again..

Even as our tears rained down.

The Broken-Hearted Song went on.

Earth Gardeners

 ⁵Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. ⁶Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there and do not decrease.  ⁷But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare—Jeremiah 29:5–7.

One of the things Jeremiah tells the exiles in Babylon to do is to plant gardens.  

Have you ever wondered why God would ask him do that?

As a gardener I can tell you that there’s something sacred about tending the Earth, breaking a sweat as you toil to prepare the soil, planting seeds, and tending to them as they grow.  

When we get the soil of a place under our fingernails, it’s hard not forge a connection with the place where we are.  We become rooted and grounded in the place where we garden—even if we’re far from the place we call home.

According to Genesis 1 human life began in a Garden, and according to John 20, new life emerged from a Garden Tomb on Easter.  Maybe this is why, when all else is in turmoil, we tend to come back to our gardens.  During the First and Second World Wars, people in various countries planted Victory Gardens.  They served a practical purpose in that they provided food for the family; but they also made people feel as if they were making a tangible contribution to the war effort.  I have to wonder if the exiles felt the same way as they planted gardens in Babylon—even as they simultaneously wept for what they had lost back in Jerusalem (Psalm 137:1).  

We find ourselves in a time of turmoil now, cut off from the world we knew “before COVID-19” and not sure what the world will be like after this.  Interestingly enough, in the midst of a global pandemic, some are planting gardens again—with both practical and prophetic purpose. 

This past Wednesday was the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day.  NASA images provide unique views of our world from the vantage point of space.  The iconic 1968 Earthrise image taken by the Astronauts aboard Apollo 8 increased our awareness that there is but one Earth, and we’re all on it together, and led to the first Earth Day in 1970.  Since then, we’ve learned so much more about the planet we call home, how it is changing, and what the consequences may be for all of us on spaceship Earth.   

As we each work to make our little corner of creation a bit more beautiful and good, we make a contribution to the common good of the Earth.  To paraphrase the Weeping Prophet, we realize that in our home planet’s welfare we find our own welfare. As we cultivate gardens of goodness in our time and place, we join a long tradition of good-gardeners dating back to the tenants of the first Garden in Genesis 1, and we fulfill our Creators mandate to be caretakers of Creation, and to exercise just dominion over all that God has given us. 

The Earth Exposed

Read: Genesis 1:26-31; Psalm 8; and Colossians 1:15-20.

We’re living through unprecedented times.  The past we knew is gone; the future that will emerge “after COVID-19”  is uncertain.  In this “space in between” it sometimes feels like the warp and wept of reality has come unraveled.  That’s the name of the current sermon series at Good Shepherd.  A fitting time to consider this topic for sure!

The discussion bought to mind another sermon I heard preached in July 2016.  In it Rev. Carletta Allen reflected that, in the aftermath of several recent incidents of racial violence, some in her congregation suggested that, “Things are getting so much worse in our world.”  Her response has always stuck with me—and I think it truly resonates now:

No, things aren’t getting worse, they are just being exposed.

We must hold on—and keep pushing back the veil.

Consider, for example, an old rug in our home.  Over years and years, its fibers have come unraveled.  We are just about to replace it when we notice something.  The space between the backing and the weaving is not empty.  There is another layer underneath.  The unraveling has exposed a hidden image!  We stop to carefully examine what we have discovered.

Here’s a question for us: 

What is the current pandemic isolation exposing 

that we need to ponder?  

I’m sure we could all name things—both personally and corporately—that have come to light. 

April 22, 2020 is Earth Day.
Image credit: NASA

Since today is the 50th Earth Day, I’d like to focus on what this extended period of reduced human activity has exposed about our home planet—and the choice it presents for us.

Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) is a pollutant that is emitted from burning fossil fuels.  The average NO₂ concentrations during March 2020 over the Northeast U.S. were considerably lower than the average values for March over the past four years—as shown here.  

Similar pollution reduction has been observed in other places that have experienced economic slowdowns as a result of COVID-19.  Animals travel on highways and bridges normally overcrowded with automobiles, mountain peaks are suddenly visible on the horizon of some cities in India and China—all sort of things are being exposed! 

These images permit glimpses of a potential future for our planet—one with cleaner skies and water, and more sustainability for us and for future generations.  A vision appears in front of us.  Whether it emerges or remains elusive is up to us.  For it to become reality, to paraphrase Rev. Allen: Our job is to hold on to the vision and keep pushing back the veil.  In other words, we’ll have to develop the collective will to do the hard work required to make it last.  While we realistically can’t completely eliminate our use of fossil fuels immediately, we could certainly commit to making some changes as a society that would significantly reduce our dependence on them as we move forward.  

The choices we make will help to shape the world that emerges after this crisis.  It has been that way since the Beginning.  God gave human beings dominion over the created world (Genesis 1:26; Psalm 8:6). It was a charge to reflect the image of our Creator (Genesis 1:27, Colossians 1:15), to share God’s care for creation, and rule over it justly and benevolently for the common good of all.  As followers of Christ, who binds all things together (Colossians 1:17), we’re each to do our part to rebind what has been unraveled by sin and injustice wherever we have influence.  

Unfortunately, as humans are wont to do, we’ve tended to turn the focus on ourselves.  We’ve interpreted dominion as a license to impose our will over the created world and exploit the Other for our benefit.  

Clearly the choices we make have consequences for our planet. The Switzerland option isn’t really viable. We either work with God to make Earth more beautiful and good or we work against God and add to ugliness and evil.  Which brings us back to our original question:

What is this time of pandemic isolation exposing in you?

and now, the crucial follow-up…

What will you choose to do about it?

Holy Saturday: When Nothing Was Everyhing

At that moment the curtain of the Temple was torn into, from the top to the bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs were also opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.  After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.  Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, “Truly this man was God’s son!”—Matthew 27:51-54 [cf: Mark 15:38-39]

Holy Saturday is a day of uncomfortable waiting that presents followers of Christ today with a paradox.  It is both a day when nothing happens in the conventional story of Jesus and when everything happens that matters to our faith—1 Corinthians 15:12-14.  

On one hand, nothing happens to Jesus on Holy Saturday.  His body lays lifeless in a sealed tomb.  According to Matthew, guards are posted outside the tomb to make sure no one disturbs it or spreads “fake news” about Jesus rising—Matthew 27:62–66. 

On the other hand, Holy Saturday is the day when everything happens that matters to our faith. While humanity was stumbling in the dark, so the legend goes, the Light of the World shined in the Darkest place—where all other light fails.  One tradition is that while the body of Jesus lay lifeless in a borrowed tomb, the Universal Christ waged war with Death and emerged victorious, leading all who were chained in “Hell” to freedom. (The passage from Matthew’s account of the crucifixion cited above is the only indirect reference to this event in the Gospels; if you compare to Mark, you will notice he does not include these details.)  

According to this theology, when Jesus raises from his tomb, he isn’t alone he raises all of humanity with him. (The Greek word for resurrection is anastasis, literally meaning “rising or sitting up”.) The statement Jesus makes here is profound and unmistakable; it resonates through eternity: Even Death ccannot defeat the power of God! [1]

This is an encouraging word for us, who “live out our days on Holy Saturday”.  That is to say, we live life with God in the eternal now, but we also await the not yet, or the fullness of God’s Kingdom.  If his Tomb couldn’t hold Jesus, if Death doesn’t get the last word, that means none of the temporary “deaths” or “tombs” you and I face do either, whether they be imposed by the current Coronavirus threat or by other pain, suffering, hardship, or difficult circumstances we encounter in this life.  God’s power surpasses all these things.

Holy Saturday also reminds us that important things sometimes happen when “on the surface,” things seem lifeless.  Gardeners like me know that plants that look dead in winter are often merely dormant—awaiting spring “resurrection”.  I’m reminded of this on my whenever I look at the trees in my neighborhood.  Every year lifeless brown twigs in winter transform into branches laden with buds and blossoms in spring, which rapidly give way to green leaves. The flora flourish during the summer months and then fade to autumn glory, before the leaves fall and the cycle begins anew. To sum it up: For everything there is a season…— Ecclesiastes 3:1–8.

Tomorrow on Easter, the traditional words we say are: Christ is risen... Christ is risen indeed!  Perhaps, in light of the events of Holy Saturday, we should hasten to add: 

We are risen!  ... we are risen indeed!

God, whenever we find ourselves in that uncomfortable space between the now and the not yet, help us to trust that You are with us. Even when we feel like we are trapped in a tomb, reassure us that You are still here.  No matter how hard the situation may seem, no matter how impossible the odds—help us know that death never has the last word.  A day of resurrection will come when the clouds lift and the Light of the World shines through.  Until that day we commit to: “Just be still.  Just have hope.  And wait for the Lord!”  AMEN

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[1] If you want to learn more about this topic, I highly recommend Resurrecting Easter: How the East Lost and the West Kept the Original Easter Vision [New York: HarperCollins, 2018] by John Dominic and Sarah Sexton Crossan [cover shown above]. This book takes you on a visual tour of the development of theology surrounding Jesus’s resurrection. 

What Do We Do With Time in the Tomb?

We are living in an uncomfortable (liminal) space right now. In a matter of weeks, the insidious Coronavirus has reshaped our society, virtually bringing the powers of this world to their knees, crippling the global economy, and forcing us to abandon our “normal” routines, withdraw to our homes, and minimize contact with the outside world, all in hopes that we can “flatten the curve” and contain the spread of a virus that currently has no cure. While not lethal to most, it’s ten times more deadly to those at risk than the seasonal flu. It is a challenging and scary time for us all. 

Telling the Story of COVID-19

As a writer, I wonder what kind of stories will emerge from these unprecedented times?  As with any personal or corporate tragedy we live through, the story usually comes into focus with the passage of time.  It may take years, or even decades, to adequately describe the radical change we are presently experiencing.  When we reflect back on the Coronavirus pandemic, how will we describe it?  How will future us say that we are different because of this tragedy?  What will our children write about it—based on what their parents or grandparents tell them?  How will people not even born today interpret this time when they read about it in history books?  Will people ask us why we didn’t see it coming—as we do about the characters in the Holy Week drama followers of Jesus remember this week? (See Should the Disciples Have Seen it Coming, below.)  Why wasn’t it more obvious to us?  Didn’t people try to warn us this could happen, they might ask.  If they didn’t, why not?   If they did, why didn’t we listen?  

As we try and find words to articulate this experience, both now and in years to come, we will inevitably look for analogous times in history.  The COVID-19 pandemic is already being compared to the Bubonic Plague in Europe (1347–mid-1350s), and to the more recent Influenza Epidemic (1918/1920).  But another, less obvious comparison has come to my mind this week. I think what we’re living through might be similar to what the first Holy Saturday was like for those who lived through it.  While the first followers of Jesus “sheltered in place” to avoid execution for treason against Rome, we do it to prevent the spread of a virus, but both isolate us and cut us off from our normal routines in the world we knew before now.  Also, in both cases, we are not sure when (or if) it will be safe to reenter the world again—nor how the world we reenter will be different than the one we left, though it surely will be different.

In light of this possible connection, maybe it’s helpful to look a bit closer at Holy Week this year—both what it is like now (in 2020) and what it would’ve been like then (in ~33 AD, when those first followers of Jesus lived through it.)  We might discover that this year presents a unique opportunity for twenty-first century Christ followers to experience solidarity with how those first followers felt—and especially on Holy Saturday.   

Should the Disciples Have Seen It Coming?

If you read the Gospel accounts of Holy Week, it seems Jesus had told his closest followers to expect precisely what happened to them when he was with them.  For example, the Gospel of Mark (thought to be the oldest Gospel, and the easiest to follow the chronology of events of Holy Week) records three times when Jesus tries to tell them what was going to happen when they went to Jerusalem (Mark 8:31–33; 9:30–32; 10:32–34).  Each time the disciples respond in ways that show they’ve failed to “hear” it.  Sometimes we tend to think of the Disciples as dimwits who simply didn’t get it, no matter how hard Jesus tried to explain things to them.   But, is that really a fair assessment?  I mean, let’s be honest, those people we meet on the pages of the Gospels are you and me. I can’t help but think if I had been in their sandals, I’d probably have been just as unprepared as they were. 

The fact is, no one living at that time would’ve expected resurrection?!  It’s not like there’s a true precedent.  Okay, maybe the rising of Lazarus (John 11:1–44) which presumably at least some of the disciples witnessed, should’ve clued them in.   But that was at least death by natural causes.  No one—and I mean, no one—came back from a Roman crucifixion.  When Rome killed you, you were “really most extremely dead.”  As far as we know, the resurrection (assuming you believe it literally happened) is a unique event in human history.  It didn’t happen to anyone before Jesus, and it hasn’t happened again sense.

I think it’s easy to forget this when we read descriptions of Holy Week in the Gospels, where it almost seems like the people involved realized things instantly—especially in John’s Gospel.  But keep in mind the stories of the life of Jesus and its meaning that we have recorded in the Bible were all written at least several decades after Jesus lived, when those who lived through it had time to reflect on what they experienced and then either wrote down stories about it themselves (e.g., Matthew and John), or told them to other storytellers (e.g., Mark and Luke) who did the writing. 

What’s So Holy About Saturday?

As a follower of Christ in the year 2020, we aren’t really sure what to do with the day between Good Friday and Easter.  I mean, Jesus died on the Cross yesterday, and the Tomb is empty tomorrow—but what do we do with the time in the Tomb?  Not much to see here…   Awkward!...  We'll come back when "He is Risen!"?

    

The fact is, more than 2000 years of Church history affords us the privilege of ignoring Holy Saturday.   After all, we already know the “full story” of  Holy Week; if anything we are overfamiliar with it.  We almost take it for granted.  We can blithely say, “That Good Friday service was kind of  a downer…  I’m glad that’s over.  I can’t wait for tomorrow!”  No need to dwell on unpleasant topics like death in the year 2020 for too long.  Onward to resurrection!  

In fact, the majority skip Holy Thursday and Good Friday entirely and, if they show up for services at all, it’s only once the Tomb is empty.  (Regular attenders like me call these folks Easter Lilies, since they fill the space and make it so pretty for a week, but then they fade away, leaving a barren and near-empty sanctuary the next Sunday.)   Granted, some may attend Easter Vigils on Holy Saturday, but that’s more common in Eastern Orthodox churches.  For most Western Protestants, it’s “business as usual” on Holy Saturday. [1] Baseball and soccer games, grocery store trips, Easter egg hunts, and other spring activities dominate our agenda, or perhaps rehearsal for some aspect of the Easter Sunday service, where we sing  that, “Christ is risen,” even as (according to Scripture and tradition) he lays dead in the Tomb. In a typical year our Western culture tends to skip over Holy Saturday in our rush to Easter.

Colored glass images of Holy Week.
Good Shepherd UMC.
Waldorf, MD

The First Holy Week:  When Triumph Turned to Tragedy

The first followers of Jesus certainly couldn’t take Easter for granted as we do—because it hadn’t been invented yet!   Whether they should’ve expected what happened can be debated (see above), but that they didn’t seems pretty clear, based on how they reacted to the events as they happened.  

For example, when the Disciples receive the incredible news from the women about the Empty Tomb the next morning, their first thought is not: “He is risen!”  It’s likely something more along the lines of: “Oh bloody marvelous!  It’s not enough we had to watch our friend murdured by the Romans on Friday,  now some common criminal has stolen his body!”  Even once they see the Empty Tomb with their own eyes, they still struggle to understand what is going on.  I don’t think it really dawns on them immediately—despite how some of the Gospel stories portray it.  It’s not until the book of Acts (taking place weeks, if not months, later) that they really begin acting like people who truly believe: “He is risen indeed!.”

Such a delayed reaction is probably precisely what you would expect from a group of people who have had their world turned upside down by the events of Holy Week.  Jesus was not only their Rabbi; he had become their friend.  On Palm Sunday, when their ragtag band entered Jerusalem, and they were met with shouts of “Hosanna!” they must have felt on top of the Temple.  They thought Jesus was about to establish himself as King, just like David did back in the “good old days.” Most of them were probably lobbying for “cabinet positions” in the new regime—we know James and John were (Mark 10:35–40) with their mother's help (Matthew 20:20–23).

But of course, that’s not what happened.  Just five days later, a crowd—most likely not the same people—manipulated by the religious and political leaders, shouted, “Crucify him!”  

The First Holy Saturday

It all unraveled so fast!  He is betrayed by one of his closest followers, denied by another, and abandoned by all of them.  By sundown on Friday night (when the Jewish Sabbath begins), Jesus has been executed by the Romans and his followers found themselves hiding away, trying to avoid being identified as an associate of the “rebel Jesus”—and likely facing the same fate as he.  It was a sad Sabbath to be sure; all their hopes and dreams must seem as dead as their friend Jesus was.  

Huddled away in hiding, I'm sure they felt trapped.  I imagine it felt like an eerie place of death—a tomb—especially since it’s likely their “safehouse” was the same Upper Room where they had eaten their last meal with Jesus just a few nights earlier.  

Holy Saturday 2020—Enduring Our Time in the “Tomb”

I relate to how those first followers felt on Holy Saturday more than ever this year.  After several weeks of social isolation, my home at moments feels like a tomb—in the sense that the four walls limit my family’s movement.  (Yes, I know I can go outside whenever I want, but indulge my hyperbole.) My family longs to be freer than we are; we want to be able to go and do what we would normally be doing this time of year.  We long to worship at our church building on Easter this Sunday—but we can’t.   We long just to eat a meal out at a favorite restaurant!   My kids lament the loss of the activities they had planned this spring—e.g., baseball, softball, school plays, birthday parties with friends.  (I must say I don’t miss the hour-each-way commute to my office a couple days a week.)  

There are moments when the four bodies in our “temporary tomb” get a bit too close for comfort and we must retreat to our separate sepulchers.   For the most part, though, we’re enduring—and even enjoying—one another and doing our best to get through the present inconvenience.  We’re thankful that we’re healthy—and we are aware that many are in much more peril than us on a daily basis right now.  We take our time in the tomb in stride and we try the make the best of it.  What choice do we have?  We’re resolved that it’s going to be a while before Easter truly comes this year.  But, O, how we plan to celebrate when it does!

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[1] In his memoir, The Pastor, Eugene Petersen explains how his father’s butcher shop had one if its busiest days of the year on Holy Saturday, as people purchased meat for their Easter dinner tomorrow.  While Jesus lay in the grave, business was booming in butcher shop!