The Eternity of Holy Saturday – An Apocalyptic Easter

dedicated to the saints who’ve gone before, my co-laborers, co-hort, husband and my children

may we be changed

“Hold on…hold on…hold on...” I fight the Spring daylight I used to love. Hell, I’m awake. 

Is it Monday? No, I tell myself. 

It isn’t Monday, Monday was another day, the beginning of the week. 

Oh, it’s Wednesday. 

I check in with my body. No, it’s not Wednesday. There’s nothing particular marking today. 

It’s past 8 a.m. I know this without glancing at my phone. Kids are up. Luis is in the shower. Television, humming. I throw myself onto my side. Once I am up, does that mean I am up for the entire day? 

Tightness, common to stress fatigue grips me.  I’ve written these words before, about other traumas, I interrupt myself. I’ve worked my ass off. For what? 

I want the life of caring at a distance. Not a distance from another, but a distance from suffering.

It’s almost Easter, again. My trip to Walmart last night revealed shelves of Easter bunnies, candy untouched, baskets to choose from – days before the big event. But, I can’t get to that event this year. I don’t want to. 

They say Jesus died on Friday. I heard this called Good Friday all my church-going life. I heard about the torture of Jesus, name-calling, whipping, unjust nature of his betrayal. Pastors described the thorn crown pushed into his brow, and nails driven through a part of his hand or wrist. He bled so much. He cried out so much. He bore so much. 

Then, the story simply skipped to an empty tomb. Finished. Done. Time to celebrate.

A professor spoke of Holy Saturday one day early in my graduate studies. I leaned in, but dismissed much of what he said. 

Wake up, friends. 

I wake up to the reality of what these endless days mean to those in poverty, partners of abusive partners.

I wake up to the reality of countless days I joke of that have no markers. 

I wake up to the eternity of each day, the isolation of body from body.

I wake up to profound disparities, a virus without cure, highlighting socio-economic class structures.

I wake up to a virus which scientifically exposes generational racial traumas we’ve been silencing.

I wake up to vile, viscous acts perpetrated upon Asian Americans out of our white supremacy ideologies.

I wake up to ways which in times of terror I’ve taken more resources than I need, draining the food banks, while shunning immigrants fearing violence and death. 

I wake up to realize the disproportionate price paid by grocery store workers, health care providers, garbage men and women, public transportation drivers, food bank operators, amazon employees, mail delivery persons, essential immigrants working fields, unemployed without benefits are all people I’ve ignored. 

I see the underbelly of suffering, and how gross our systems are. 

I wake up to the chasm separating justice, truth, and love from those who need it most. 

I have participated in the sacrifice of these people to the idols of greed and power, our ungodly lust for more. 

And meanwhile, in the middle of this apocalyptic revelation, I will gather with a crowd of believers around the world on Sunday with phones, TVs, tablets and computers to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

I am celebrating the resurrection of a brown Jesus who ate with wine-drinkers and tax collectors, elevated women to power, healed the untouchables, called religious leaders to pass through the eye of a needle, and gave a murderer deathbed forgiveness and entrance into Heaven.

How will I celebrate Easter without my heart waiting in Holy Saturday?

My church tradition said little of a Holy Saturday. I know why. 

Jesus sunk into a depth I wish on no one. He lingered in shadows, darkness enveloped him. 

Jesus experienced an isolation from goodness, love, connection. 

He was separated from the senses that connect body to spirit and to one another, entering Holy Saturday having experienced unbearable rejection, physical torture, and the acute knowledge of who betrayed him. 

The pain of loss of humanity and love are unbearable. It’s torture. 

So, I skipped Holy Saturday. And, I passed right on by it. 

But, I have not passed by it this year. In the mundane, monotonous, repeated isolating and powerless days I grieve the losses, barely praying, and clinging to expectation for a hope even as I fight the pain of that very hope I long for. 

In the stench of government greed and society’s willful ignorance, I wait. 

On Holy Saturday, I belong with you, Jesus.  

I belong in the trenches, glorious and of free will, entering suffering and believing anyway. 

I belong to the hopeless mire of Holy Saturday, to a day, a night without ending. 

Let it be that in my suffering and endless waiting, the callousness of my heart is worn through and rubbed away. 

Let it be that in the midst of the virus exposing suffering which already existed, I live the meaning of the resurrection. That my heart buried in greed, power, and lust, sheds its scales.

In apocalyptic revealing I see the possibilities of what could be. 

I am made new. We are made new. 

Oh, it's Saturday. On this Holy day let us allow the grief, gratitude, pain, and redemption to be this unveiling.

May it be, Jesus.