Help us to wait in faith, hope, and love, O Lord. Amen.
Throughout Holy Week, the sermons have focused on the Cross. And, originally, my plan was for that series to culminate and conclude yesterday, on Good Friday. By Holy Saturday, the cross has been endured and it now stands empty, having served its purpose as our attention shifts to the tomb. But as I was preparing this sermon, I couldn’t leave the cross behind; or rather, the cross still has more to say.
This should have been more obvious to me, as the cross, even 2,000 years later, still stands at the center of our faith. The cross still adorns churches, it is still the sign we trace over our bodies, it remains the symbol of our faith. Even on Holy Saturday, we live in the shadow of the cross. But something happens on Holy Saturday to the cross; it is in transition. Yesterday, the cross was a threat and an instrument of torture. By tomorrow morning, the cross will have taken on a radically new meaning. On Easter, the cross becomes the punchline of a joke. On Easter, Death is stripped of its power, and love is found to be more definitive and enduring than Sin. Tomorrow, God looks upon and cross and says “Did you think that was going to stop me from being God?” On Holy Saturday, we stand between the cross as death and a joke.
And in this moment, we wait. It is something like that time between a caterpillar and a butterfly. We are in that crucible moment of transformation and what happens when we skip this period is that we skip the growth that comes from the wait. Waiting is not about doing nothing, it is about letting something happen. Whether it is waiting for dough to rise, concrete to set, or a seed to germinate, we know that waiting is not passive.
Waiting on Holy Saturday is not like waiting at a bus stop or waiting for a storm to pass. We are not waiting for the mere passage of time, we are waiting for something that is on the way to arrive. This sort of waiting is full of action. It’s something like the waiting that happens during pregnancy – yes, we wait for a birth, but there are changes going on the whole time as the parents are growing into being parenthood, not to mention all of the logistics that need to happen to welcome a baby into the world. It is this sense of becoming that makes this Saturday’s waiting holy.
Just as a caterpillar is becoming a butterfly in the cocoon or parents are growing into parenthood during pregnancy, something is becoming on Holy Saturday. The reading from Job points us toward this anticipation. Job writes, “There is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth branches like a young plant.” Perhaps Job was not able to see that this same hope exists for humans and all of creation, but because of Jesus, we are assured that we are on a solid foundation in such a hope.
The hinge in Job’s hope is the word “yet.” The stump dies in the ground, yet, at the scent of water it will bud. On Holy Saturday we are in the “yet.” And that yet makes all the difference. We are not wasting away our lives, we are not merely waiting for the end to come. We are in the midst of the yet of God’s love. Yes, we still contend with the atrocities of Good Friday, with things like violence, war, meanness, and suffering. We still bury our loved ones and wish that death did not sever our connection with them. But we are not stuck there. Resurrection is on the way.
And just as surely as a seed puts forth a shoot or an in-utero baby kicks and moves, there are waves of the Resurrection breaking onto our shores even now. No, even on this side of Easter the kingdom has not fully arrived on earth as it is in heaven; yet, it is on the way. And so our waiting is done as sentinels who watch for signs of reconciliation, of new possibility, of a peace that passes all understanding, of a love that is making all things well. Our waiting is done as heralds who announce this hope and arrival. Our waiting is done as ambassadors who work to pave the way for the coming of our Lord. Our waiting is done in wonder, love, and praise as we steep and steel ourselves in the promise of God who is on the way.
And what makes this waiting secure is what Job prays for – that God would remember. We wait, but do so not because we have been forgotten. We wait because a transformation is happening that unfolding in time. Death is being undone. Sin is becoming overcome. Everything sad is becoming untrue. We are not idly standing by, we are growing in faith, hope, and love. Just as surely as the Father remembered Jesus in the tomb and raised him up on the third day, we are also remembered as we are given the time and space to become more fully what God intends for us to be: the beloved community of God.
