The approach to Easter this year comes at a time of great upheaval and instability, in the Middle East and across the world. There’s nothing new there, perhaps: amid the ongoing post-Covid global permacrisis, with new ‘wars and rumours of wars’ seeming to spring up on a near-monthly basis, each new cycle of the Christian calendar provides us with an opportunity to set our own all-too-human chaos against the fathomless order of God’s eternal plans. Certainly it is good to be reminded at Easter, the apex of the liturgical year, that God’s plan of salvation was accomplished in the midst of military occupation, violent disorder and judicial corruption. Indeed, God was able to turn the wickedness of the wicked – seen in the self-serving machinations of Judas, the Sanhedrin, and Pilate – somehow back upon itself to accomplish his ultimate aim. So there is no pit too dark for the Light of the World to illuminate. There’s a truth to hold on to in these days.
But as I reflect on the Easter story this year, I am drawn not to the pitch-black of Good Friday, nor to the coruscating light of Easter Sunday itself, but to the space in between: the great silence of Holy Saturday, the Sabbath where the tomb stood closed and still, and the disciples sat frozen in their raw grief, forbidden by religious law even from visiting Jesus’ body to embalm it. We may never know how Jesus spent those twenty-four hours: whether he ‘rested from his labour’ of salvation as his body grew cold, just as God the Father rested from the labour of creation on the first Sabbath, or whether (as many early Christian traditions have it) he descended into hell in this period to break the power of sin and death and set free those who had already died.
What we do know, though, is that none of his disciples had any idea what was about to happen. Even as they walked with their spices to the tomb on Easter morning, even as they gaped at the open entrance and the folded grave-clothes, their first thought was of grave-robbers or a Roman plot, not of resurrection. Even when an angel appeared and told them exactly what had happened, they still couldn’t get their heads around it. In fact the original ending to Mark’s gospel implies that the first witnesses to the empty tomb fled the scene more distraught, if anything, than they had entered it:
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. (Mark 16:4–8, NIV)’G
I love the messiness of this ending. I love the fact that it leaves loose ends untied, even if it makes for the occasional exegetical headache. I love it because it reminds me that it’s okay to feel confused when you are living in the middle of the story. Jesus had told the disciples what was going to happen to him point-blank, multiple times, and yet they still couldn’t fathom it when it actually came to pass. And he didn’t expect them to! When we follow through the rest of the story in Luke or John, we see Jesus’ patience in helping his followers work through the implications of what he had already told them would happen. It took time, but he wasn’t in a hurry.
So today, as we prepare to celebrate Jesus’ ultimate victory over sin and death, let’s hold on to God’s eternal promises. We are in the middle of the story, but we know how it ends. And when we feel bewildered with each new turning page, Jesus understands, and he is patient with us.
Image: “Garden Tomb 04” by Tim Reid, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
- The great silence - April 4, 2026
- Childlike faith? - December 18, 2024
- God with us - December 19, 2023
0 Comments