Holy Saturday – some things to think about when ‘on your own’ at any time
Saturday 4th April - the hospital waiting room
The day between Good Friday, and Easter Day is sometimes called Holy Saturday and is often ignored as far as its spiritual significance is concerned – but Chris Llewellyn of the Rend Collective writes this about Holy Saturday in the April 2020 edition of Christianity
‘It’s a no man’s land of disappointment, unfulfilled dreams and the unsettling feeling that things might not turn out the way you hoped and prayed they would.
Imagine the disciples experience trying to reconcile the fragments of promises of resurrection hope that they had heard so many times, with the devastating grief of Jesus’ death. Holy Saturday is an awkward, angular day.
It’s not necessarily devoid of hope and faith – after all the miracle was on the horizon - but equally we know from painful experience that sometimes the miracle we’re praying for doesn’t arrive. Holy Saturday is the spiritual equivalent of the hospital waiting room.’
And he then finishes the article, writing out of his experience as a songwriter writing both songs of joy and sadness:
‘ Even if the psycho – spiritual hormone reward is not quite as explosive as it is when we’re singing about victory and breakthrough, we desperately need a vocabulary of worship that navigates uncertainty and insecurity. We need to be equipped for the shadowy terrain we are actually walking, not just the mountaintops that we so infrequently visit.
If we don’t learn to praise God throughout Holy Saturday, I fear our worship might cease to have much to do with real lives and struggles. And if we’re OK with an inauthentic feel-good Easter experience, I reckon we’re better off sticking with the chocolate bunnies.’
Optional Video if you have access to the internet: Four candles (not the Two Ronnies version! Four Candles
Loving God - today we know and celebrate that death is not the end
I know that my Redeemer lives What joy that blest assurance gives
He lives, he lives who once was dead he lives my everlasting head
The hymn – ‘Christ is alive’ can be sung unaccompanied, or said, or sung to the video (in four part harmony if you wish!) Christ is Alive
1 Christ is alive! Let Christians sing.
His cross stands empty to the sky.
Let streets and homes with praises ring.
Love, drowned in death, shall never die.
2 Christ is alive! No longer bound
to distant years in Palestine,
but saving, healing, here and now,
and touching every place and time.
3 CHOIR ONLY In every insult, rift and war,
where colour, scorn or wealth divide,
Christ suffers still, yet loves the more,
and lives, where even hope has died.
4 Women and men, in age and youth,
can feel the Spirit, hear the call,
and find the way, the life, the truth,
revealed in Jesus, freed for all.
5 Christ is alive and comes to bring
good news to this and every age,
till earth and sky and ocean ring
with joy, with justice, love, and praise.
Brian Wren (b. 1936)
Reproduced from Singing the Faith Electronic Words Edition, number 297
Words: © 1969, 1995, Stainer & Bell Ltd, 23 Gruneisen Road, London N3 1DZ www.stainer.co.uk
Action – For a 5 min egg - take out your boiled egg now and crack it open to remind you of the tomb that was open. Eat your egg and then continue to worship as you say
He lives to bless me with his love He lives to plead for me above
he lives my hungry soul to feed. He lives to help in time of need
And so we pray for all in need this day that they may know the presence of their living Saviour and the peace that he alone can bring.
(silence is kept for at least 20 seconds)