Holy Saturday

It’s early. Everyone else (with the exception of Sandi, of course) is still asleep. It’s that odd day sandwiched between the cross of Good Friday and the empty tomb of Easter morning. Holy Saturday has arrived. And this year, it’s come with a hard freeze.

It seems appropriate, somehow. The bed feels so warm. It’s hard to get up; ought to just snuggle back in and…sleep… for a little while… longer. It’s as if our Lord has reached down through the weather and added his own personal ornament to this tree of celebration we call Holy Saturday. Our lord is dead- sleeping in a bed of stone. It’s the Sabbath, the day of rest, the last day of the week- the last day of existence for the old cursed creation. In the morning death will die, but she doesn’t know it yet. Already, the righteous poison is working its way through her system, but she is unaware.

There is a scene at the end of the movie HellBoy, which reminds me of what our God was up to on these three precious days over two thousand years ago. Hellboy is facing Behemoth, a huge demonic being. To look at them, the battle is hopeless. Behemoth is huge, and mean and powerful. Hellboy is all of these things, but not when scaled against his opponent. When they battle, our hero appears small and weak. Finally, to anyone watching from the sidelines the inevitable happens. Behemoth swallows the small opponent- not even needing to chew. That was yesterday- Good Friday. Death devoured our Savior and champion.

The beast belches in satisfaction- sitting back on its wormlike haunches, but for those who have ears to hear a high pitched wine can be heard. Hellboy has activated the green grenades he strapped to his body before purposefully provoking the beast. For those who understand, things have just taken a drastic turn. That’s today- Holy Saturday. Death has taken He who has life within himself- He who is life itself- into its belly.

With sudden realization, a troubled expression passes for the shortest of moments across the “face” of the behemoth before the demon explodes from the very heart of its own belly. That will be tomorrow- Easter morning.

The icon for the resurrection makes all of this perfectly clear. Christ is standing on the burst gates of death and hell- helping those who have been held in its grasp to their feet. He descended into hell. He died as fully as any man or woman has ever died. His solidarity with us is complete. This the incarnation made possible. God cannot die, but creature can. Those who receive life as a gift can be forced to give it up. And so death made claim on this man- as he does on every man and woman Christ came to save. But this particular morsel was indivisible and inseparably united to Life itself. Death had taken its own destruction into its heart. Death was destroyed by death. That is the message of Holy Saturday. Our sorrow is not replaced. Our sorrow is transformed.

I need to get up and moving. Last night’s Good Friday Service is still heavy on my heart. We left him in the tomb. We left the darkened sanctuary sorrowful and silent. It is what it is: our Savior is dead. But sometime, later in the morning my heart will begin to sing. An epiphany will begin to work its solace through my day. Death has swallowed unending and unconquerable life. Damned death is surely damned. It is what it is: Our savior is among the dead. Hallelujah!

Written by my Dadda at Dappled Thoughts.

THE LAST SAYING

Once in a small village upon a lonely hill, lay a small cottage in shingles.
The family of the household was 8 children, and 1 lonely father. The mother Aartina had died in a freak accident from the burning of Formatan Forest, she was collecting berries for her husband’s birthday pie. Well she was trying to escape when she came to a cut-off in the wood, and with the fire drawing near she plunged herself into the tree not knowing it was slowly being eaten away by the flame. And so without notice the tree fell, Aartina with it into darkness living the father alone hating the world for the death of his beloved bride Aartina.







The children of the cottage were Mindy, Curtis, Matt, Jenny, Elizabeth, Zoey, Martina, and Caleb. The father was Joseph Framer. The cottage was unfairly messed up and there were 3 rooms. 1 was for Joseph [the father], the 2nd was for the 3 brothers, and the 3rd and the last room was for the 5 sisters. And in the middle of the 3 rooms was a tiny little kitchen the size of maybe 2 small bathrooms put together. The children loved one another very much, and they very rarely asked for anything. There meals were fairly decent, well they were enough to keep the children full, and yet the children never complained. There was a well outside of the house where the children to go to get washed up and get water, and as for a bathroom there were woods, sad but true. There father Joseph was a blacksmith that nobody liked because he was a sour man around others besides his children. They had no relatives except for one aunt in the Carolinas, who was there mother’s sister, but they rarely ever saw her, except for at Christmas when she came to visit. They had no money to travel so she always had to come to them.
Well, the children ages are um, lets see well Mindy is 14, Curtis is 16, Matt is 12, Jenny is 10, Elizabeth is 12, Zoey is 6, Martina is 3, and Caleb is 11. They are all beautiful children and all there mothers eyes and fathers nose. This cottage on a lonely hill is in the old 1870’s, in the city of Qualachan.