REIMAGINING HOLY SATURDAY

The name of the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is Holy Saturday. I’m not certain how “the Church” came to that decision. I don’t think anybody really cares much about Holy Saturday, because nothing happened on that day. No death, no resurrection, no drama, just nothing … nothing.

It was the Jewish sabbath, after all, and, perhaps, nothing was appropriate. At this very moment in my life, it’s the nothing that is speaking to me with clarion clarity.

I recently watched a documentary on HBO about the Irish band U2 that focused on a very specific period in the life of the band. The band they had been was no longer working for the four principals of the band, and they had no clue what to do about that. Months and years of trying to reimagine themselves had failed. No matter how hard they worked to get something, they had nothing — except unease, anxiety, and an overwhelming sense that it was all about to be over for U2.

Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, the guitar riff for the song “One” materialized. The members of the group locked in on it, and the foundation for Achtung, Baby (the bands seventh studio album) unfolded in a revitalizing way. They were reborn, and the feeling of new life among the old friends and band mates was very real and invigorated their work together.

Here’s the most striking part of the story. Bono, the lead singer of the band, said of that time, “In order to find what’s next you have to completely let go of what you once had. Completely. And in between who you were and who you will be, in between what you had and what you will have, you’ve got nothing. And that nothing is absolutely terrifying.”

On Holy Saturday, Jesus’ disciples had nothing.

They weren’t at home dying eggs; they weren’t outside working in the yard; they didn’t know that tomorrow was Easter. They thought it was all over. They had given their lives and their hearts to this man, and he had died hanging on a cross. On Saturday, the most holy day of the week, the story they had been a part of had come to an unsettling end.

Their identities, their plans, their futures … gone.

On Easter Sunday we celebrate the resurrection and new life, but on Holy Saturday we need to remember the terrifying void in which there is nothing. Of course, we have the benefit of knowing where the story leads. We now know that the really beautiful gifts of grace like wisdom and patience and compassion and creativity and vulnerability and empathy and love — these things come to us most often when we are broken and empty. They present themselves as new bricks for the ones who choose to rebuild their lives from a rubble strewn ground.

On Holy Saturday we have nothing.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Is it getting better?
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now? 
You got someone to blame

You say one love, one life
It's one need in the night
One love, get to share it
Leaves you darling, if you don't care for it

Did I disappoint you? 
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without

Well it's too late, tonight
To drag the past out into the light
We're one, but we're not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other
One...

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus?
To the lepers in your head

Well, did I ask too much, more than a lot?
You gave me nothing, now it's all I got
We're one, but we're not the same
Well we, hurt each other
Then we do it again

You say
Love is a temple
Love is a higher law
Love is a temple
Love is the higher law
You ask me to enter
Well then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters and my
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other

One...
One love

© U2