Saturday, April 11, 2020

April 11, 2020 - Holy Saturday



In the name of God Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
            Holy Saturday is a day of waiting. Yesterday was the day that Jesus was crucified and tomorrow we will be the celebration of the Resurrection, but there is a day between these two major events in our salvation. Nothing happens on Holy Saturday in Scripture, so we can only guess what the disciples and faithful followers of Jesus must have been up to. As this morning’s Collect tells us, just as the crucified body of Jesus laid in the tomb, so we await the coming of the third day. We wait.
            Waiting is hard. If you’re like me, when you order something online, you watch the package through its tracking number to see where it is. Waiting to get news on how an interview or test went can be difficult. While in most situations, a few hours can fly by, but you’re stuck in an airport terminal waiting for a delayed flight, a few hours can seem a lot longer. Children, and adults, struggle to wait our turn, to wait until after dinner for a dessert, to wait to open a package that has arrived on our birthday. Waiting is hard.
            Just ask the Altar Guild about it. The church was stripped on Maundy Thursday and is bare. But Easter is coming. And even though this year we’re not going to deck the church out as fully as we normally do, we still will make it clear that Easter is the queen of all the feasts in the Church year. So there are hangings to hang, lilies to put out, and all sorts of things to put back into their place after emptying the church. And, understandably, the Altar Guild wants to get going on this and get on with their day, especially considering that the Easter Vigil begins not long from now. But before they get to work, they have to wait. On Holy Saturday, we all wait. Instead of getting the decorating done first thing, we have to wait for this liturgy to conclude. And that’s a good metaphor in our faith and in our lives. Sometimes we have to wait because that’s where holiness happens.
            Think of a seed that is buried in the ground, if it is not given enough time, it will not sprout into new life. Think of how many times in your life something amazing has happened when you didn’t plan it out that way. Think of how many distractions turned into blessings. Times of waiting can be just as productive as times of activity.
            But what do we do while we are waiting? We want to still be good stewards of our time, right? Consider the example of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus in the reading from John. What do they do? The person they had thought was the Messiah was just executed, which wasn’t a part of the plan as they imagined it. So what did they do while they waited to see what would happen? They did the next right thing. Someone they knew had died and needed a proper burial, so they gave him one.
Nicodemus, who had previously come to Jesus at night and talked to Jesus about being born again, now comes in the light of day. With his presence, he is making a statement – this man’s death was not justified. He brings with him a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about 100 pounds, which is a lot. So, for one, Nicodemus probably brought some helpers with him, or he was a very strong person. While it can be difficult to know exactly how much that great amount of burial items would be in today’s dollars, we can safely say that it was a lot of money. Think in terms of an expensive funeral today, lik a State funeral, it’s an extremely costly amount of spices.
We know very little of Joseph of Arimathea, other than he was a member of the council, a secret disciple of Jesus, and was wealthy enough to own a brand new tomb in a prime location as a garden near the holy city. Similar to Nicodemus, his actions were the next right thing for him to do, but they were costly, both in the sense that he is publically aligning himself with Jesus by giving his tomb and in the financial value of the tomb.
Both Nicodemus and Joseph are great examples of stewardship and people with wealth using that wealth in generous ways for the glory of God. I’m sure they were just as surprised as anyone on Easter morning that Jesus was risen, so it’s not as if they did these generous deeds expecting to get anything back. Rather, even when such actions made little sense, they aligned themselves with what might have been seen as a losing cause. But they did these things because that was the most faithful and loving thing that knew to do in the moment. And in doing that, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea are great examples to us of holy waiting. When you don’t know what to you, you can always do the best thing that you can think to do.
Sometimes making a casserole or a phone call seems small, but it really makes a world of difference to someone in need. That money in your bank account that you really could spare, giving it to the church to further the work of the Gospel makes an impact far greater than you might imagine. A few kind words or a public statement of your faith in Jesus goes a long way in this world.
I see it all around St. Luke’s, even in this difficult time. Staff members who aren’t sure how to be the church in this uncharted territory have been doing what they think would be helpful – Matt, Caroline, Bonnie, Marcus, and Tracey have done their absolute best in this situation and with tremendous results, so please join me in thanking them. The Vestry has been diligent in checking on members of the parish. Some of you have offered your resources, both know-how and physical, to help us improve our live-streaming capabilities. The Altar Guild has still been faithful in preparing this church for a Holy Week unlike any other, but it’s still been a very holy week. Beth and Hunter have served as wonderful singers in helping us to sing songs to God in this strange land we find ourselves in. Many of you have offered to help those in need and have been acting generously in our community in ways that I’m not aware of. Some of you are health care workers and have other essential jobs and you’ve been hard at work, putting yourself at risk by not being at home in order to serve the public good. This is what we do while we wait – we do the next right, the next loving, the next faithful thing.
Yes, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are Biblical models for this, and you all have been following these holy examples. Waiting is hard, but we do not wait alone. We wait with one another and we wait with Christ. It’s going to be a while longer of waiting until things start to resemble “normal” again, so we’re going to have lots of opportunities to practice waiting. As we do so, we wait together in faith, hope in love. As we wait, we will have opportunities to do our best in doing the next right thing, and though we will fall short in doing so, we have an abundance of mercy and grace from God to try again. And as we wait, the Son will indeed rise tomorrow.