holy saturday

Holy Saturday. Sitting in discomfort. I’ve been mulling over that idea today, in what has turned out to be a needed respite from scheduled business. It has been a Godsend: a gift of silence, in a sense. Today we—those who profess a faith in Jesus Christ, recognize the solemn occasion of the day in which the earth was darkened by death. Last night, in our Good Friday service, we each hammered a nail to the cross, and then took communion. We recognized the part we each playing in nailing the Saviour of the world to a tree. We. Each. Me. I nailed my Lord to the tree.
A part of me rushes to clarify, right now. “Oh, but of course, His grace covers us . . . we are redeemed . . .” Yes. But I’m afraid I know, far too well, the depravity of my own soul. Yesterday, in particular, I was feeling the weight of my failings. It was a day of failure. A day I would like to deny. Like Peter’s denial of his association with Christ, I wish I could deny my association with my own dark soul. Instead I held the hammer in hand and I nailed my Lord to the cross . . . and then I knelt beside my husband. We ate the bread, and drank the wine, and sang of the deep, deep love of Jesus.
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free. Rolling as a mighty ocean. In its fullness over me.
Today we wait.
We wait for rain to stop, and the sun to shine. We wait for Easter Sunday.
And, in this family, we wait for a death thats imminence cannot be denied. My grandpa—my “Dad 2”—was taken, by ambulance, back to the hospital today. This time it was a move from the nursing home, not from the house. And with the way things have been deteriorating, I am afraid.
Could I be wrong? Certainly. Could he live to be 100? Certainly.
But the weight of my soul, on this Holy Saturday, bears a gravity of suspicion that this is it.
Leading onward, leading homeward. To your glorious rest above . . . And it lifts me up to glory. For it lifts me up to Thee.