Saturday April 16 Holy Saturday
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Psalm 88
A lament that I have been crushed and am beyond hope. When I am dead, there is nothing left, there is no life beyond the grave.
Astonishingly, to be fully with us, Jesus enters completely into such a death. This psalm is appropriately read on a Friday as Jesus is placed in the grave. Only God’s act, on Saturday night—the eve of the resurrection—can reverse death—even Jesus’ death. That’s the only hope there is.
Lamentations 3.37-58 What’s Lamentations about?
Six hundred years before Jesus, Jerusalem’s destruction is complete. So is Jesus’ death. But from “the pit”—meaning the place of death—God will hear. Just as Jesus today lies in the “pit.” Yet God will hear.
Romans 8.1-11 What’s Romans about?
Paul is encouraging us to recognize that we live in two worlds. One world, which he calls “flesh” and “law” is the world which trusts in threats of violence for people to get what they want. It is the world in which selfishness, oppression, and violence are the norm. Paul wants us to recognize that that world leads inevitably to death. But we also live in another world, the world of “Spirit.” Spirit doesn’t mean non-physical, or heaven, or theoretical. It means a world motivated by generous love, the sort of love we saw in Jesus on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Paul thinks that world of Spirit is emerging right in the middle of the world of death and followers of Christ rejoice that we live in such a world. But that wonderful world of the “Spirit” hasn’t emerged yet, as Jesus hasn’t yet emerged from the tomb. We live in, and are guided by, the expectation that the world of “Spirit” is about to emerge around us. Nobody can prove or demonstrate that, but trusting in it makes all the difference, and then it happens!
Today’s collect:
Eternal Giver of life and light,
this holy night shines with the radiance of the risen Christ.
Renew your Church with the Spirit given to us in baptism,
that we may worship you in sincerity and truth,
and shine as a light in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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