Dear One’s of St. C’s, 

I hope you all are able to live into Holy Week in someway this week.  Today we observe Good Friday. Earlier today at St. C's we walked the way of the cross and expressed how it felt through our bodies. Tonight we will sit with the empty cross, as Joseph and Nicodemus take the body of Jesus and wrap it with the spices in linen cloth.  I will find myself questioning this violence that is at the center of our faith and I will wonder if there was another way. And I will once again conclude, as I always do, that this is the most powerful, heartwrenching, beautiful, thing God could have done to show us who we are and invite us to be something new.  

And then Holy Saturday will come.  In some ways the hardest day of all. The waiting for hope to arrive. Why did Jesus have to wait three excruciating days?  Why not just a few hours?  I believe we need to practice Holy Saturday because life is filled with them.  The days our hope is lost.  We must sit with Holy Saturday, the vastness of all that is lost on this day, because someday, if not today, we will find ourselves hopeless and scared.   We must not rush to Easter.  We must not rush to hope.  I invite you to take a moment tomorrow to think about the sadness of this day.  To think about a time when you felt hopeless. How do we stay open to the resurrection, while still honoring the sorrow in our lives?

On Holy Saturday Jesus is dead in a tomb.  Joseph and Nicodemus are tending to his stiff body and Mary Magdalene and Mary are there with them waiting.  Hope is not gone, it’s just questioned.  Let’s not run from this questioning of hope, but honor it.  Honor your fear.  Let’s learn how to sit in Holy Saturday.  Just do not forget to get up early the next day and go to the tomb, for you may have a chance to see that darkness has been overcome by the light and love of God.

with hope and peace, 

Meghan