Saturday, April 8, 2023

Sabbath's Twilight: A Holy Saturday Reflection

 The hardest part is the waiting. 

The day before there had been so much noise. The jeering of the mob. The sentence of Pilate. The smug gossip from the chattering rabbis. The confused disdain of soldiers at one more Jewish rebel, one more delusional cultist. They had their fun, beating and whipping, the cruel pleasures of a jailer. There were also the wails of women, who saw another son and brother being stripped naked and crucified. Some of these women were closer. There was Mary of Clopas and the man's very Mother. They cried an ocean of tears as the beloved Son, the coming champion, the Prophet Moses spoke about, had come to an ignominious end. Would Mary have bartered if she could? Did she frantically recall the words spoken over the Boy, the One who would cause a rising and falling of souls for Israel, the One who would cause her heart to be pierced with sorrows? There was also that peculiar figure, that friend, the Beloved Disciple John, who stood at the Tree. The earliest Christians recognized John the Elder had a special relationship because he himself was special. Born of a priestly family, perhaps one of the only men of Levi who had recognized a Tabernacle of Flesh. He had received a command to receive the bereaved Mother into his home as a son. To what end?

But there was, of course, a noticeable absence. Where had the Twelve gone? At the day's conclusion, the so-called King of the Jews had expired. His bizarre sigh, that *it* is accomplished, may have raised a cacophony of feeling. But as he lived, crying out to His Father in Heaven, He aspirated lines from Psalms and choked out specific requests in accordance with arcane prophecy. *It* is accomplished, and his breath gave out. The criminals besides him were put away through the crunch of broken bones. A darkness had covered the sky and a silence descended on the land. An unlikely disciple, perhaps curious before the Procurator, came to request the body. An unused tomb was selected for the body of this strangely beloved Man, a man who did little in the way of resistance or defiance. There lay the man some had come to believe was the Christ, but no more. There was the erudite Master that had caused a minor tumult throughout the Promised Land. Where had the Twelve gone?

There are many things worth reflecting upon during Holy Saturday. Perhaps most importantly is Christ's mission to the dead. There in the twilight realm of souls that the Greeks had called Hades, the realm of the unseen shades of old, many remained in bondage. Would the Sons of Adam ever see light? Would the shadows which spoke so ruefully to Odysseus ever find redemption? Or was it better, truly, to be a live dog than a dead lion? Was it more worthy to be a living slave than a dead hero like Achilles? Symbolized in blinding light shattering the darkness, or as a conquering hero pillaging the belly of a beast, the victorious Christ has pulled Adam and Eve from their tombs. Awake sleeper, He cried, awake and I will give you light! Death, the Last Enemy, had been trampled down by death. The emptying of Sheol, the harrowing of Hell, is the great achievement of this glorious day.

However, where had the Twelve gone? Another aspect was the deafening silence of this empty day. The Sabbath had dawned once again to no effect. The rest that bathed this day was the quiet of the grave. Perhaps many of the Twelve still feared for their own lives, fugitives linked to an executed criminal. Nevertheless, the banal agony, the most painful, was the emptiness. Three years dedicated to the Master to what effect? Maybe they recalled cryptic words about an impending death. It is possible they puzzled over these dark sayings. Was the Teacher mad? Then how did He do such great works? Was he devil possessed? Then why did our hearts burn as He authoritatively taught the Law? How could a man of darkness bring forth such works of light? How did the radiance of good open up the truth? If these were absurd conjectures, then how did he fail? Did he fail? What future lay open? Holy Saturday did not reveal Easter Sunday, but remained terribly opaque. The horror of flattened time, the true banality of evil, opened upon negative infinity. Was this not *the* time? Was this not *the* judgement? Was not that what all those cryptic tales were about? They alone had received special instruction, they the humble men of dust entrusted with divine promises. Ruling on Twelve thrones, was that a sick joke? Was it on the horizon? Was this twilight hour Dusk's eternal night or Dawn's coming light?

Thus, waiting was the hardest part.

The anxiety and the boredom of the Disciples is all too often in a world of chains. The Western world has lost its sense of resurrection, but it has in no way lost its sense of suffering or sacrifice. It is easy enough, for those with some spine, to gaze upon the dead king. It is easy enough to contemplate another failure in its tragic beauty. Another cause lost, another hero laid low, another step towards progress. An uneasy optimism, pockmarked with cynicism, spreads out as a nauseating visage. The world's fake smile, forced laugh, and vile tears, these are nothing more than pathetic ways to cope with the agony of existing. Long gone is the romantic virility of the sacrificial hero. Instead, a grotesque caricature remains in the cult of the victim. Man is reduced to the Wounded, another minority who overcomes through rhetorical pathos and empty platitudes. Of course these cheap and mass-produced displays of dull spirit are the velvet glove that covers an iron fist of administrative policing. Drugged and babbling, the frenetic chaos of Good Friday remains with us as a crucifixion without a Christ.

And the Christ must come! The Hero must reign victoriously! But not yet.

Holy Saturday is a time to contemplate the Twilight. Do we live according to the rising sun? So many live as scurrying mice upon a sinking ship, so many scattered before dying rays. They find ways to cope and handle a history empty of meaning. They may craft bubbles, empty worlds foaming up on the sea of existence, oblivious to the wave ready to crash. One may resign to this wheel of Samsara, the tossing and turnings of endless waters. Is this it? Is there more? Was he really the One, the Mouth of God who spoke words of life? Are those embers prepared for a raging fire which will melt the very elements of the cosmos? Do we train as men ready to receive crowns, or haggard skeletons awaiting a tomb? Is the day of rest a moment before a day of resurrection? Waiting may be the hardest part, but it fits us to bear the weight of glory.


May we have the courage to wait with eyes upon the morning star.

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