Holy Saturday Reflections

Dear Friends,

Good Friday and Holy Saturday should be observed fully before we celebrate Easter Sunday. So I hesitate to write about Easter Sunday on Holy Saturday. So let's reflect on Holy Saturday for a moment...

Holy Saturday, the day between the Cross and the Resurrection, is a mysterious day. It is the day that Jesus was in the grave. It is a day of great silence. God has died in the flesh. It is a day that doesn't make sense. 

This is one of the most sober days of the Church Year, if not the most sober. This was the day that the disciples thought their Lord had been conquered. 

In a happy-clappy and death-denying world...we want to get past Holy Saturday to Easter Sunday. But if we resist the urge to skip to the empty tomb, Jesus will teach us about the deep meaning of suffering and show us that we are never alone, even when we are in the deepest pain. We can learn that ultimately our suffering leads us to yield to the Father, "into your hands I commit my spirit." Jesus' victory over Satan empowers us to have victory over temptation and evil. Holy Saturday is a day to reflect deeply and quietly on the suffering of Christ, who suffered for us. 

So without passing over Holy Saturday, I want to invite you to tomorrow's Easter Sunday service. Invite others. Post an invitation on social media, send an email blast, or call a friend and invite them. 

I have heard the music being planned for tomorrow and it is going to be awesome. Randy Voight and the choir are singing one particular song that will bring you into the presence of God for sure. I will bring a message on the Miracle of the Resurrection. We will look at it from the aspect of "promises." God makes promises, God keeps promises. The world makes promises and we make promises...the world breaks promises and we break promises. Jesus promised to die on the Cross for our sins. He promises to rise again on the third day. He promised to return sometime in the future. Jesus kept his promises and will keep his promises yet to be realized. 

Even when it seems that all is lost, as it did on Holy Saturday, Jesus delivers on his promises on Easter Sunday. So the question tomorrow will be a simple one, "who keeps their promises...Jesus or the world?" For the world, if we are honest, Holy Saturday is ultimately where the world's promises end. For Christians, the Cross is our past and Easter is the promise of the beginning of our future. Jesus did not die on the Cross and rise from the grave to make bad people good, but to raise dead people to life. That means we are "Resurrection People" in the here and now! We can see the promise of the resurrection all around us. Martin Luther said, "our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf of springtime." 

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live." -John 11:25

Quite a promise. 

In Christ Alone, 

Chuck L.