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.
