Worlds turned upside down
Holy Saturday and Covid-19
AM Psalm 95*, 88 • Psalm 27
Lam. 3:37-58 • Heb. 4:1-16 [AM] • Rom. 8:1-11 [PM]
* for the Invitatory
Jesus’ followers spent the first Holy Saturday in a daze, in a panic, and in deep despair because their Master had been brutally executed the day before. Even though Jesus had told them that in the end he would be victorious, the promise of God’s coming kingdom seemed to die with him. Maybe we can understand something of their anxiety on this Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter, which is for us a day of confusion and fear about the physical and economic health of the planet. Our world is turned upside down by pandemics that we cannot understand.
Let’s back up a step: Did you notice that we have no gospel reading today? Maybe it’s because the four gospels tell us almost nothing about what happened. The only exception is Matthew, where, with the approval of Pilate, the High Priest’s guard came and sealed the tomb so Jesus’ followers could not remove the body and say he had been raised from the dead. Two of the passages we do have today are cries of desperation, sounding for all the world like Jesus’ cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34, quoting Psalm 22:2) The other readings are much more hopeful, as in Psalm 27:1: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid.”
In his last conversation with the disciples before his death Jesus did not sugar coat what would happen to him, and to them. But he did make them a promise: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate [Holy Spirit] to be with you forever....You know him, because he abides with you and he will be in you.” (John 14:16)
I’m writing this reflection on March 24, and it’s impossible to know just what the world will look like by the time you read it. There could be changes coming that make us cry out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken us?” But if so, may God give us the strength also to say, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” Amen.
Written by Bob McMath
Bob is comforted to be part of St. Paul’s at this time and to be surrounded by a loving family. He is also proud to have his own avatar sitting in the empty church along with some of yours. (Thanks, Linda.)