Yes, it's called Holy Saturday

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.

Saturday has once again become a day of sleeping late.  I will forgo the explanation for this change, but suffice it to say the explanation would be enough to help you sleep a little later as well.  Nothing exciting here. I'm just tired..

But I do enjoy the sleeping late.  It has been a long time since my body wanted to do that, to lie in bed after the room gets light and turn over, adjusting the pillow and the covers,  trying to find the darkness again.  Not a bad darkness. A good darkness.  A cocoon-like darkness that wraps me up and invites me to stay asleep under the warm covers and dream.  Kinda makes me want to go back to bed just thinking about it.

But even in my sleeping late this morning I woke up from time to time after the sun crashed in uninvited, invading my cocoon,  as it does on these clear-skies days.   And the birds.  I think they have discovered an amplification system.  They were raising a ruckus this morning.  Not enough to wake me up completely.  More like a natural snooze alarm. Except I couldn't reach over and slap them off. One of my favorite choir anthems for Holy Week is "And No Bird Sang."   Apparently the birds on my hillside haven't heard it.

In terms of Holy Week, I am not sure what we call today.  Hold on, let me do a search on that. Yes, it is Holy Saturday. That would have been my educated guess during Holy Week.  Holy _______.    Sort of like guessing Andy Warhol for every pop art question in Trivial Pursuit.    The Church has created traditions for this day. Some have changed over the years.  Fasting for some. No fasting for others.  No communion served except when it is allowed.  That sort of thing.

But the Holy Bible does not tell us much about Holy Saturday.  From the gospels (actually one, Matthew) we learn that officials placed guards and seals at the tomb of Jesus on Holy Saturday to prevent his followers from stealing his body and claiming he was resurrected.  That's about it for Holy Saturday, scripture wise.

We don't really know.

We don't really know what to do.

What we do know is that Jesus is dead, having suffered an unthinkably painful, humiliating public execution. His body is in a tomb, sealed with a huge stone, guarded by soldiers.

And we know that the last few days have been horrible. Violent. Mean. Cruel. Disappointing. Confusing. Not just for Jesus.  It has been hard on us.

More than enough to make us want to find the safety of the darkness and hide, with souls shivering in the absence of the light.  And wonder, just to ourselves because of what others might think, what do we want?

Do we want him to stay in the tomb?

He turned everything upside down.  Those who love Him are hated by others. And those others can get pretty mean, obviously.  He said he came bringing Peace, but it is hard to find it right now.    We are afraid.

We are afraid that he will stay in the tomb.  We are afraid that he won't.

And so we seek the darkness.  Not a bad darkness, really.  Just the kind that wraps us up and invites us to stay, sleep, and  maybe to dream.

Until something wakes us up.

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