Waiting on the Promises of God: A Holy Saturday Meditation on Psalm 22

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

why art thou so far from helping me,

and from the words of my roaring?

O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not;

and in the night season, and am not silent.

But thou art holy,

O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

Our fathers trusted in thee:

they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

They cried unto thee, and were delivered:

they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.

 

The Holy Triduum of Easter begins with Maundy Thursday commemorating when Jesus established His Holy Supper with His disciples during the Passover feast.  It moves quickly into Good Friday, as the Gospels record Jesus’ betrayal in the dark morning hours, His mock trial, brutal scourging, and execution by crucifixion later that afternoon.  On the morning of the third day, He rose again from the dead and showed Himself alive to His disciples, victorious over sin, death, and hell.  Soon the Church shall gather all over the world to celebrate the resurrection of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who gave His gracious gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation to all who would repent and believe in Him.  Easter is the highest, most holy day in Christendom, and for good reason—it is the first day of the New Creation, inaugurated by Jesus as the New Adam by whom all who live in His grace by faith live forever.  It is the reason the Church gathers and worships on Sunday, not to abrogate the ancient Sabbath, but to show it fulfilled in Jesus.  Soon the bells will ring, the songs be lifted up in joyous celebration, and the Gospel be proclaimed to all who will hear it.  For God has so loved the world that He has given His Son to save it, to take our place under His judgement for our wickedness and corruption, and give to us through His Easter Resurrection, eternal life reconciled to God.

 

Yet between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, there is an often forgotten day from which the Church can learn much.  Holy Saturday, the vigil kept by the disciples of Jesus while His body lay in the cold stone tomb, was one of great fear, darkness, and dwindling hope.  They had heard Jesus from His cross utter those mournful words, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” not long before He gave up His spirit.  They knew the Hebrew idiom, that to quote the first line of a Psalm was to quote the whole, and so their minds would be filled with the ancient prophecy of King David who saw forward nearly 1000 years to the Cross of Christ when the Holy Spirit inspired him to write it.  Jesus did not despair upon His Cross, but in His dying breaths, taught His disciples to wait upon the Lord according to His promises, even through the worst agonies of death.  Jesus had already told them this was going to occur, and that He would rise again.  Jesus pointed His disciples, surrounded by the same wickedness and evil that was unjustly taking His life, to the promises of God, so that like all the ancient saints of Israel, they might wait in faith upon the Lord.  From an earthly perspective, death seems final and triumphant over every creature, but it is not so for God, the Creator and Savior of the universe.  For God, death and hell were simply the last of humanity’s foes that He would conquer through the Vicarious Atonement of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world.  While people may have trouble trusting in the Word of the Lord in the face of death, God shows us that His Word rules all things, and cannot be stopped, even by death.  Thus it is that Jesus could reveal to His disciples that Abraham, who lived 2000 years before Him, rejoiced to see His day; that Moses and Elijah could meet with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration centuries after their earthly walk was done; how Lazarus could walk and dine with them after having been dead and buried for four days, raised by the power of His Word.

 

When the celebration of Easter is done, like the Gospel itself, the lesson of Holy Saturday will remain.  In every age of the People of God, there are forces which mount their opposition to all that is holy, who use violence and death to move forward their evil machinations, hoping to intimidate and crush the faithful through fear.  Regardless of our local communities’ relative experience of peace or conflict in any given time, Jesus teaches His disciples to trust in the Word of the Lord, for His Word endures forever.  There is no challenge of man or demon which can unseat His divine promises, nor pluck any of His children from His almighty hand.  Like our Savior, we will all pass through the valley of the shadow of death, but our Lord who has conquered death shall be with us forever.  And when He comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead, to make the final separation of all evil from His renewed creation, the resurrected saints shall shine forth from every generation as one holy fellowship like the stars of heaven, in eternal testimony to the wonders of His love and grace.

 

Be of good cheer, for just as our Lord’s resurrection made faith become sight to His disciples, so faith believes the Word which has already been fulfilled, and looks forward in certain hope to the Word yet to be fulfilled.  For what the Word of the Lord has freely given us by His grace through faith—forgiveness, life, and salvation—He will bring to fulfillment not only for us, but for the whole world.  For Christ has come, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.  Let us always hear Him from His Cross as He teaches us to wait in faith upon His Word of promise, even as we hear Him speak His Gospel triumphantly from His empty tomb.  For the Word of the Lord shall endure forever, as will all those who abide in it by faith— thus we wait upon the Lord in a sure hope which enlightens every darkness, quickens every heart, and dispels every fear, no matter our time and place.  Amen.