Holy Saturday

Job 14:1-14

Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24

Psalm 31

1 Peter 4:1-8

Matthew 27:57-66 or

John 19:38-42

What do you do on a day with no news? If you are the Internet, kittens!!! If you are CNN, hang tenaciously onto the last good story (CNN actually had a “Breaking News”: Titanic sank 100 years ago today). If you are a journalist, work on your book. If you are an Apostle, lay low and wait for someone to tell you what to do. We do not really know what happened with the eleven remaining apostles or in the community of the faithful. We can only imagine what they did because the Bible does not tell about the day. Only Luke 23:56b says they rested on the sabbath. We know what happens up until dusk the day before and we know what happens at dawn the next day. Various faiths have developed traditions covering Holy Saturday. Today’s Scriptures finish the Good Friday story in the Gospel reading(s), offer insight to what the believers may have been thinking based on beliefs from the Old Testament, an offer scriptural cover to some of the spiritual traditions regarding what Jesus was doing that day.

Matthew and John relate versions of the claiming and burial of Christ’s body. I admit that I had never read them side-by-side and notice the differences between them. Mark and Luke most closely agree with the Matthew passage. The Luke passage has the faithful women preparing the spices and oils for burial. The differences between the passages, ultimately are trivial - it does not matter who did what, or how much was done to prepare the body, or who owned the tomb as it was only briefly borrowed and returned good as new.

Job, as one of the oldest books in the Bible, looked at death as final. Early Jewish teaching did not widely consider any kind of spiritual afterlife, much less eternity in a place of reward or judgment. The rewards and punishments came in life and in the story of Job, we watch him experience both. God was seen as active in the day-to-day events of humanity so for the faithful, it meant watching all that one did to earn favor with him. That daily involvement is partly what gave Job the willingness to challenge God. The worst God could do was kill him, and with the troubles he was enduring, death was better than years of lament.

Lamentations continues to hold God responsible for our blessings and our troubles. The author declares that God is angry with him and has caused something like leprosy, fractured bones, mental illness, and isolation. Although God inflicted tremendous physical and mental strain on the author, the author knows God can forgive and fix. He has hope and clings to that.

The passage from 1 Peter offers clues to a passage in the Apostles Creed, and justification for several practices that result from overly-literal readings of the verses. The Apostles’ Creed affirms the belief that on Saturday, Jesus descended into Hell to bring the gospel to those who had died before so that they might have an equal chance into heaven. Verse six says the gospel was proclaimed to the dead, and because Jesus was “dead” in sin (the entire world’s past, present, and future sin), he had to be in Hell. Verse one also brings its own challenge to right behavior. The verse has been used by some to justify self abuse (flagellation) to prove their faithfulness and rejection of worldly ways. Practitioners of these beliefs will beat themselves until they are bleeding to connect with Christ’s physical pain. Contrary to that interpretation, those who suffer still continue to sin. The physical suffering of the cross forgave all sin, but did not stop it from happening. Finally verse seven’s exhortation to “be serious and discipline yourselves” has been interpreted by some to avoid anything fun, that brings pleasure, or that might twist one’s mouth into a smile, for that will be the exact moment Christ returns and instantly damns you to Hell.

The passages today bring a wide variety of ideas found in different portions of Christianity. Their wide reach accurately represents the anxious uncertainty of the day in our faith. Patience today brings us jubilation in the morning.

Lenten Prayer - Spiritual Leaders

Lord,

During the Lenten season we seek to know you better by sharing your experience. We put away objects and habits we cherish. Likewise we adopt habits that challenge us. We groan and we grow. We struggle and we seek.

We (should be) step(ping) out of our comfort zone.

In this time we need our spiritual leaders. Please grant them patience in this time. We are difficult enough to love the rest of the year, how difficult we must be when we step out of our comfort zone.

And not just now, but always, we ask blessings on those who have accepted the call to lead your flock. We thank you for them and their ability to reflect your love to us.  Help them recognize our gratitude even when we fail to express it ourselves.

Amen

September 15 - Ordinary Time

Today’s Scriptures: Lectionary selections from the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Exodus 32:7-14 Psalm 51 1 Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 15:1-10

Today’s Reflection: Giving me time to have an idle mind sometimes proves dangerous. I may decide the entire house needs rearranging or the garden needs tilling with a spoon. Sometimes my idle mind proves delicious as I work out some new concoction in the kitchen. Times when my mind is truly idle occur only on rare occasion, but they lead me in directions I had no intention of going. In the passages today we see examples of what I could see as idle minds and some very focused minds. While Moses was on Mt. Sinai with God, the others were gathered at the base of the mountain with nothing specific to do. No wandering. The Sabbath is only one day a week. What else is there to do on the other six days while Moses was away? He had been gone a long time and perhaps this time he was not coming back.  Idle minds lead to idols. The laws of worship had been given and a priestly order had been ordained so a group of people should have known better, nonetheless, they led the construction of the idol. We can only speculate on the motive. The only thing the scripture gives us is that they wanted a tangible form of God to worship. The creation of the idol provides the back-story to today’s scripture in which we find a God who is ready to consume them and put an end to entire adventure in the desert. Moses, as prophets often did, intervened before God for the sake of the people. God gives the people another chance and the opportunity to return to his covenant with them. Ironically, the people received something of what they wanted; Moses brought with him the tablets of the covenant with God which were housed inside the Ark of the Covenant – which was a visible symbol of God carried before the people. In both New Testament passages we find people who are singularly focused. In Timothy, Paul maintains his focus by remembering how God saved him from the sinful persecution of Christians he originally undertook. In Luke, Jesus again uses a parable to demonstrate the focus of God to have the lost return to him. Both passages recognize the patience God manages as he sometimes brings believers to him (Paul) and sometimes waits for the lost to return. Ultimately, God wants all to come to him. Just as God is patient with us when our idle minds, or disobedient tendencies, overwhelm us, how much more should we turn that patience around and extend the same to those around us. As we learn to extend the grace of patience toward others, we too will find those celebrations of the shepherd and woman.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts. www.commontexts.org