Why I Love Holy Saturday

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This is the best worst day of the year.
Holy Saturday.
It’s the day after the worst thing happened.
It’s the day after everything fell apart.
But it’s quiet.
There’s no celebrations yet.
No empty tomb.
No risen Jesus to sing about.
It’s just quiet.
This day is so real life to me.
The day you wake up and everything is bad and dark and sad.
It’s a day we’d rather rush through in order to get to Easter quickly.
We don’t like to sit in the dark, sad, places.
But this day is important.
Because we will feel this way again.
The day after someone we love dies.
The day after a diagnosis.
The day after the worst day.
The day before the resurrection.
The in-between day.
It’s not as hard as yesterday.
It does not contain even a teeny bit of tomorrow’s joy.
But here we are.
So be in this day.
Trust that the worst thing is not the last thing.

Lastly – I want to share a poem from Jan Richardson.
She didn’t write it for this day, this strange in between day.
But I think it’s perfect…

Blessing for a Broken Vessel – by Jan Richardson

Do not despair.
You hold the memory of what it was to be whole.

It lives deep in your bones.
It abides in your heart that has been torn and mended a hundred times.
It persists in your lungs that know the mystery of what it means
to be full,
to be empty,
to be full again.

I am not asking you to give up your grip on the shards you clasp so close to you
but to wonder what it would be like for those jagged edges to meet each other
in some new pattern that you have never imagined,
that you have never dared to dream.