Holy Saturday

After Jesus died, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary watched Joseph of Arimathea wrap his broken body and place it in Joseph's own tomb, a new one, which had been hewn from the rock.  The women were sitting somewhere, perhaps on a low stone wall, opposite the tomb, watching.  They saw Joseph roll the great stone across to seal the door of the tomb.

The women were just sitting there, watching.  Almost certainly in sorrow.  Perhaps in shock and disbelief, but perhaps not.  After all, these things always happen - someone comes along and for a while there is hope, there is light and life, there is promise, and then it all gets dashed.

Then there is betrayal.  There is a mob.  There is violence.  There is blood.  There is death.

A violent and shameful death is not new, or even news.  Why should this time be any different from all the betrayals and violence and blood and death gone before?

That's where we are on this Holy Saturday, a day of waiting and perhaps reflecting.  We know the story.  We know what did happen and what's going to happen, and it is hard to pretend otherwise.  We don't need to pretend otherwise.  Even in the knowledge of what comes next, what we have the opportunity to do today, now, is to think about how this death - and what is coming after this death - is different.

Because a lot about this death is, frankly, not different.  How many people have gotten on the wrong side of the law or the authorities or the people and are done away with, one way or another?

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sat there watching, without hope.  The stone rolled across the door of the tomb, and that was that.

But we are not without hope.  And perhaps that is the difference.