April 23: Awaiting dawn in the darkness
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DEVOTIONAL:
I’ve often wondered what that first Holy Saturday was like for the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem. The Gospels are mostly silent when it comes to this final day in our Lenten journey; the detailed narratives skip from the anguish and despair of Good Friday to the hopeful wonder of the Easter morning discovery. And perhaps this is an understandable omission. Would we not also, in our remembrance of this Holy Week, and in our own personal journeys of suffering and loss, prefer to move directly from despair and death into hope and rebirth?
We don’t really know what the followers of Jesus did on this day all those centuries ago. Bound by the Sabbath guidelines to refrain from the busywork that might have numbed the pain of Calvary’s horrors, I imagine the disciples were burdened with the dead weight of raw grief, images of death’s cruel reality still seared in their minds. The Scriptures tell us that darkness fell over the whole land on the afternoon of Good Friday, as Jesus hung dying on the cross. I think that for the first disciples, that next day must have felt like a time of great darkness, as well – the darkness of fear, of crushed hopes, of broken dreams.
In the late 1980s, the poet Brian Wren wrote the hymn text “Joyful is the Dark” in an attempt to celebrate the usually neglected positive implications of darkness in the biblical tradition. The poem’s fourth verse describes the great darkness at the end of Passion Week, but it ends with a striking phrase: “Never was that midnight touched by dread and gloom; darkness was the cradle of the dawning.” I love the idea that the darkness we so often associate with our pain, our fear, our own metaphorical deaths – this “hopeless” darkness cradles in its pitch-black arms the new life that is about to be born in us. The sorrow and anguish of that first Holy Saturday were not some cruel interlude between death and rebirth; God was preparing in this darkness the miracle of the morning.
In today’s Scripture passage, the Apostle Peter testifies to this miraculous resurrection as he speaks to a crowd at Caesarea. We hear again in his words the promise of a new life that is for all people – even those previously thought to be lost in darkness. This Holy Saturday, may we hold onto the confident hope of Peter’s words, trusting, as we await the dawn of Christ’s resurrection, that the darkness cradles our new life, as well.
Justin, I found your meditation to be very moving. I was captivated by the way you projected back into time to imagine what the disciples were thinking on Saturday. The image of the darkness as a cradle for the dawning shows that pain can be part of hope. Thank you.
Thanks, Justin, you are an awesome writer. This reminded me of your challenging me at Table Fellowship to grapple with the hard stuff in the OT that I said I did not want to read. We need darkness in our lives. And there is the promise of Easter! Love and an Easter hug, Joyce
Thank you, Justin, for this wise and wonderful and reassuring counsel. May the prayer that you offered us – that darkness will cradle new life in us – be answered and fulfilled for you as well! And on a more global scale, may the darkness now evident in politics and conflict and war become the cradle for the dawn of peace and prosperity and creativity. Yours is one voice that will help to make it so. Thank you, again.
well turned words here.
What wonderful hope we have in the great gift of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Praise to Jesus! Barbara Longenecker wife of Charles Longenecker- same e-mail address
Dear Justin, Thank you for beautiful insights about darkness cradling the light. What a deep thinker you are, way beyond your years! You have given so much to think about as darkness surrounds us in this age of war and suffering. Praying for the light of peace to arise.
Can’t eat. Can’t sleep. Can’t cry. Can’t quite not cry. Numb. Waiting for sundown. Gathering spices and herbs. Numb. Waiting for morning and daylight. Still numb.
These I imagine for Saturday.
Thanks for highlighting “darkness” as the “cradle of the dawning.”
I have been thinking of the very same thing this morning, Justin. Actually every Holy Week, every Holy Saturday, I return to this same place. What did those first disciples do/see/think/hear/feel on the “day after,” completely unknowing that a dawn really was to come, that this most painful darkness would not last forever? Given all that our Gospel writers tell us of how often this group of leaders missed the point, could we not imagine that they were caught up in the pain — and not in the faith or promise that Jesus was preaching during his ministry? That they were truly in a place of seemingly endless mourning without relief or peace in sight?
As I type this, I am sitting right now above our sanctuary, listening to our “Worship Team’s” ministrations … setting out the Lilies, preparing the flower cross, returning the paraments. This busy work reminds me that our church today has the knowledge and lives in the Easter promise that followed Holy Saturday. Indeed, God has called us and led us to this very place. But, I am also thinking about how often we assume that we are an Easter people without really living into it …
I wonder how we can help people today really, truly live as Easter people … and I wonder if part of that isn’t helping us all to recall, relive, connect as those first disciples on Holy Saturday?
?
Pastor Melinda
Southern California, United Methodist Church
Dear Justin, I’m grateful for your message of hope in darkness. By enlightening others we get enlightened too. Can I offer you my little poem written in my darkness?
THE SUN HAS SET
The sun has set.
Our Son has walked into the night,
And that night was dark, indeed,
Made the more opaque
By one man’s treachery
That manoeuvred our sinfulness unto his death.
Our Son has walked into the night,
Laid himself down,
And now is still in death.
Sleep on, Saviour sweet!
Brave Warrior of our freedom’s battle;
Hero of our redemption’s drama.
Sleep on, dear Son and Brother.
Yesterday and today you laboured;
A splendid work, indeed,
But the weight thereof
Has laid you low
In a stone sepulchre.
Yet take your rest,
Tonight and another.
Yahweh once rested
At the close of the original creation;
Why not you
On the threshold of the new?
So sleep, sweet Prince,
And take your rest.
Tomorrow and a day will bring the dawn.
And with the dawn new life.
Then you will be King!
For our Son will rise again!
Mervyn Carapiet
Thank you for the devotions
Oh, thank you, Justin. Thank you for reminding me in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the personal “dark time” I am experiencing is but the cradle of a new chapter of His resurrection life to be manifested in me. Alleluia!
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