On Friday we lament the death of Jesus, and on Sunday we celebrate his resurrection. What do we do on Saturday? What to we do when our goals have been thwarted, our expectations have left us disappointed, our hopes have been dashed, and we wake up and realize that there’s nothing left to do? Saturday is the day of silence; the day of pause; the day of waiting for we know not what. It’s the day of suspended animation. It’s the day when the world waits. It’s the day when the world holds its breath. It’s the day of the drumroll that we think we may hear rumbling faintly, many miles off in the distance— but no, that must be our imagination. Nothing good is going to happen here any time soon. What can we do on Saturday? We can learn to be silent. We can learn to pour out our souls to God in utter honesty, as King David did in the Psalms and as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane. We can learn to listen to what is really going on in our own hearts and minds and souls. We can be honest. We can face our deepest fears and doubts. After all, God already knows how we feel, and there’s no reason to hide ourselves from ourselves when there’s nothing left to lose. You can’t get much lower than rock bottom. What can we do on Saturday? We can listen for the still, soft voice of God, as did the Prophet Elijah. We can strain our ears to hear what God might be telling us. It’s easier to hear when the world around us is silent and there is nothing left to distract us. Dreams die on Friday, but if we are listening for the voice of God, new dreams and new hopes can begin to be stirred on Saturday. While there may be nothing very solid going on in our lives or in our souls, no “aha” moments, no amazing revelations from the heavens, no lightning or thunderbolts or visions in the skies, it’s the day to be looking for the smallest stirrings of the faintest hope of new beginnings. That may be all we get on Saturday, but that is enough. A little flicker of hope is all that we need. Even if we can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, at least we can begin to suspect that the light is out there somewhere. Maybe we’ll see it tomorrow. Didn’t the psalmist of old remind us “You have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again” and “Sorrow may last for a season, but joy comes in the morning”? Is it possible that we can have joy again— maybe not today, but eventually? If we listen with our souls, Saturday is the day when we may begin to hear faintly that something is stirring. A still, small voice is speaking. The smallest flicker of hope is being born. Dare we believe it? Dare we trust it? It’s not over. When we cannot see the hand of God, that’s when we learn to trust the heart of God— and the heart of God toward us is good. God is good, and his heart toward us is good. Yes, it is very good. Sometimes the voice of God speaks the loudest when everything else is silent. Sometimes we hear the voice of God most clearly when we are lamenting in silence, too sad and too stunned and too weak and too numb to be able speak or to fix or to repair or to distract or to blame or to argue or to defend or to protest or to criticize or to rationalize or to analyze or to strategize or to give an opinion or to even have an opinion. It’s the day when we stop trying to define ourselves by our positions and by our opinions. It’s the day when we stop trying to prove that “we” are right and “they” are wrong, and we realize that we don’t always need to take a side. It’s a day of learning that we have nothing to defend and nothing to hide and nothing to protect and nothing to lose, as long as we are in God’s hand— and we are in God’s hand. It’s day of realizing that there may never be a “new normal”, but that’s OK, because God is in the abnormal as much as he is in the normal. It’s the day of being still, and knowing that God is God— and that is enough. It’s the day of learning that the day that feels most hopeless is not the end of hope. It’s the day of waiting. It’s the day before the day of new beginnings. It’s Saturday.
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