By Carl Fosnaugh IV, Floral House Resident, 4/19/2014
He suffered death and was buried. (Nicene Creed)
When I think of that first Holy Saturday I imagine a scene very similar to one in a favorite movie of mine. In the film, a beloved matriarch dies suddenly a mere day before her ninetieth birthday. Each family member expresses grief, shock, disbelief, and rage differently. One young great-granddaughter balls her little fists and strikes weakly at her mother’s shoulders. Another great-granddaughter asks her boyfriend just to hold her as tears flow unchecked. Some angrily pounded the floor.
I imagine a very similar scene in the upper room. Like the sealed tomb, the room has been locked and sealed away from the world outside. I can imagine Mary the mother of Jesus consoling John or vice versa. I can imagine the other women who were at the foot of the cross still in a state of shock. I can imagine that it wasn’t holiness holiest of moments for Jesus’ followers either. The very pillows the disciples had reclined on to eat that Last Supper two nights before were possibly now in tatters. The table may very well have been broken. Vulgarity was perhaps spoken towards Jesus, at the mob mentality citizens of Jerusalem, at the Sanhedrin, at Pilate, at Herod, and at themselves. Tears were undoubted shed, shed in anger and in sadness.
What we do know for certain was that their fear was very real for they remained behind lock doors till that Pascha morning. Gone was their master, teacher, and friend. And Jesus had been replaced with less appealing companions: fear, self loathing, anger, remorse, grief, and aimlessness.
But maybe they had a new companion, one that is both painful healing: hope. Jesus did say he was going to die and then rise, remember. I call hope painful because there have been times in my own grief over the loss of a love one where though I had felt hope but I didn’t want to. Hope seemed like a silly thing in the midst of my loss. But as the modern sage has said of hope, it is a good thing…and no good thing ever dies.
I imagine this was the state that Peter and John were in that Pascha morning. The other disciples were still lost in grief, pain, and fear. Hope was something they probably didn’t want to feel hope. Peter and John had managed to push past the pain and were willing to believe Mary of Magdala enough to learn for themselves the state of the tomb. They were willing to let themselves hope in the resurrection. These two disciples had jockeyed for power against others in the inner circle. Peter denied Christ three times and fled to be alone to weep bitterly. John had enough foolish strength to see Jesus die but still cringed in fear with the others after Jesus was buried. But despite all this they still had hope enough to believe that the resurrection might have happen.
I have faced several little, personal “Good Fridays” filled with loss and pain. I have had a number of these losses while living at Floral House. My life has been a long “Holy Saturday” of late. I have been given reason to fear the future and doubt myself. And though painful and unwanted at the start, hope eventually granted me healing and endurance to face each new day. My hope has been kept alive through glimpses of resurrection joy found in each joy filled Pascha, every Eucharist, the Flash Complines, and so many others. These glimpses have also been what turned hope from being something painful into something worth feeling again.
May God ever grant me these glimpses and similar glimpses to all those in the midst of their own personal “Good Fridays” of lose and hurt and “Holy Saturdays” of grief. May God send hope into our lives that help us to meet each day and the courage to survive the waiting of our “Holy Saturdays.” Amen.
By Carl Fosnaugh IV, Floral House Resident, 4/19/2014