HOLY SATURDAY

The following meditation from Richard Rohr says a few important things about this Holy Saturday:

After a day or two Yahweh will bring us back to life; on the third day God will raise us up, and we shall live in his presence. ~ Hosea 6:2

Limen is the Latin word for threshold. A “liminal space” is the crucial in-between time when everything actually happens and yet nothing appears to be happening. It is the waiting period when the cake bakes, the actual movement is made, the real transformation takes place. One cannot just jump from Friday to Sunday in this case, there must be a Saturday! It is the liminal waiting time, which is of course not a negative waiting at all, but a making of inner space so there will be room and desire for Much Greater Things.

The Sabbath rest was the pivotal day for the Jews, and even the dead body of Jesus rests on Saturday, waiting for God to do whatever God plans to do. A sacred pause precedes the New Presence. A new creatio ex nihilo (“something out of nothing”) is about to take place, but first it must be desired, opened to, and longed for. If God gratuitously created me once out of pure love, why not again and again? That is Jesus’ faith, and we are trying to make it our own every day of our lives.

The tomb becomes a womb today, waiting for rebirth.

Tonight the church will celebrate its central liturgy of the entire church year. All of Christianity pivots around this night and this necessary transformation process of the soul. Yes, Jesus is the one who walks it visibly and consciously first, but it is so that we can follow him toward the same and identical outcome. The Gospel is an eternal promise from God that tomorrow will be different than today.