Holy Saturday: A Day of Waiting
Forlorn: women before Christ’s sepulchre, an engraving published in Le Magasin Pittoresque, Paris, 1845 Holy Saturday is the quietest day of Holy Week. Sandwiched between the agony of Good Friday and the triumph of Easter Sunday, it is the day that rarely gets a sermon. And yet, Holy Saturday may be the most relatable day in all of Christian theology: the day when God is silent. It is the day of in-betweenness—the great pause between crucifixion and resurrection, death and life, despair and joy. Jesus lies in the tomb. The disciples hide in fear. The world holds its breath. The Silence of God Theologically, Holy Saturday confronts us with divine silence. Christ is dead. The Word through whom all things were made is mute. This silence echoes through the Psalms—“Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?” (Psalm 10:1)—and through our lives. Who among us has not prayed into silence, wept into emptiness, waited for God to answer and heard nothing? Holy Saturday gives that silence a place in...
