The In-Between Day

Don't you just hate it when someone tells you the end of a story before you've got there yourself?  But of course, that's the situation which we find ourselves in on this day; the in-between day, the day between the horror of the cross and the joy of Jesus' resurrection.  We know the end of the story: with two thousand years of hindsight, we know that this remarkable story is paradoxically Good News. 

No one at Golgotha could have imagined that yesterday. For those who fled the scene, for Mary at the foot of the cross, for the ones who had laid his body in the tomb, it was all very different.  

The Day After, the day that the church now labels Holy Saturday, that day was a day of deep shock and unimaginable grief.  An unexpected and completely senseless ending of an era that had held such amazing promise.  A day of unanswerable questions.  A day of the deepest possible loss.

It was over.  

I wonder what were the strongest images imprinted on the minds of those who had lived through that Friday?  What were the scenes that replayed in their head with technicolour precision?  What were the strongest flashbacks of the day?  The sounds that echoed through their nightmares?  What were the awful memories which would stay with them forever?

The day after that awful Friday, that Saturday in Jerusalem, was lived out in the kind of shock that fills the body with tensions and numbs the mind in fear and disbelief.  The kind of shock that defies description. The kind of shock consuming all whose lives and loved ones have been shattered by undeserved horror.  

The kind of shock being played out for millions of Ukranians today.

However, you choose to spend your Easter, please enjoy its wonderful blessings.  But please don't race on too quickly from Good Friday to Easter Sunday.  Something of the enormity of the crucifixion risks being lost if you and I do that.

Take some time to wait ... to wait in the mystery.  Take some time to ponder ... and pray. 

Pray for those who even today bear Kingdom scars.

Image credit: Wintershall Passion Play, 2022