From The Restory -Conversations On The Journey (54)

Holy Saturday

Illustration by Alma Sheppard-Matsuo

“Jesus said, “You’re looking for proof, but you’re looking for the wrong kind. 

All you want is something to titillate your curiosity, satisfy your lust for miracles. 

The only proof you’re going to get is what looks like the absence of proof: Jonah-evidence. 

Like Jonah, three days and nights in the fish’s belly, 

the Son of Man will be gone three days and nights in a deep grave.”

                                                                                                        ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭12‬:‭39‬-‭40‬ ‭(The Message)‬‬

~ ❖ ~

“Joseph bought a linen sheet, 

took the body down, wrapped it in the sheet, 

and placed it in a tomb which had been dug out of solid rock. 

Then he rolled a large stone across the entrance to the tomb.”

                                                                                                    ‭‭Mark‬ ‭15‬:‭46‬ ‭(GNB)

~ ❖ ~

It is in the darkness, when there is nothing left in us that can please or comfort our minds, when we seem to be useless and worthy of all contempt, when we seem to have failed, when we seem to be destroyed and devoured, it is then that the deep and secret selfishness that is too close to us for us to identify is stripped away from our souls. It is in this darkness that we find liberty. It is in this abandonment that we are made strong. This is the night which empties us and makes us pure.

                                                                                                            Thomas Merton

~ ❖ ~

Merton describes the moment when Christians the whole world over gather in front of the tomb on the evening of Holy Saturday, “watching in the night.”

"The first voice that speaks in the silent night is the cold flint. Out of the flint springs fire. The fire, making no sound, is the most eloquent preacher on this night that calls for no other sermon than liturgical action and mystery. That spark from cold rock, reminds us that the strength, the life of God, is always deeply buried in the substance of all things. It reminds me that He has power to raise up children of Abraham even from the stones. . . .

The fire that speaks from the stone speaks, then, of his reality springing from the alienated coldness of our dead hearts, of our souls that have forgotten themselves, that have been exiled from themselves and from their God—and have lost their way in death. But there is nothing lost that God cannot find again. Nothing dead that cannot live again in the presence of His Spirit. No heart so dark, so hopeless, that it cannot be enlightened and brought back to itself, warmed back to the life of charity."

The Conversation

Elements From The Conversation 

Finding seeds

Whichever spiritual angle you are coming from, there is something significant about this festival season that acknowledges humanity's universal longing for hope. 

Situated at the turning of the seasons, we align with an ancient planetary rhythm written in our bones, a deep and rumbling reverence in the background of our hearts that parallels the ebb and flow of the turning earth, sun, moon, planets and stars. 

We align with a rhythm that recognises death, followed by life, loss, followed by gain. Our myths and stories tell of renewal, rescue, hope, emergence. 

Why do we want things to be better? Because they can be. Seeds tell us that. Despite whatever darkness we are in, be it depression, fear, brokenness or oppression, seeds stay alive. 

They guard the future as eager packages of potential, eternal optimists. 

They are like little knights in smoothened armour, who defend the grail of life.

I read this in the rivers that flow to the sea and always return to water the mountains. I read it in the rocks that rumble and crumble as sand to the sea then go millennia-journeying into the dark and molten heat-heart of the earth, only to emerge as beautiful crystals. I read it while breathing the very same molecules of oxygen that creatures on the shores of vanished lakes breathed, long before the continents assumed their current temporary shapes. 

There are generations of people ahead of us whose clear bright faces are yet unknown; there is a heart-seed in humanity that wants those people to survive, to thrive, to somehow emerge both living and immortal after all the dying is done. 

May you and yours know and experience deep peace and fresh hope in the coming days.

                                                                                                                            John Roff

Music 

George & Matilda