Waiting in darkness

Parts of the reflections for Thursday and for Saturday from the Bronte Virtual Church blog.

There was a full moon late on Tuesday evening.

This is not a coincidence.  There is always a Full Moon on one of the days before Easter. 

We know that the resurrection happened very early on the first day of the week around the feast of Passover.  And we know how the date of Passover was calculated.  So the early Christians came to celebrate the resurrection on the first Sunday after the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox.

This year’s Spring Equinox was on 20 March.  We had to wait eighteen days until Tuesday’s Full Moon.  We are now waiting five more days for the next Sunday so we can celebrate Easter on its actual anniversary.

Those without modern calendars, and without our convention that the year begins on 1 January, would have thought of it as the first day of the first new week in the first new month (a word which relates to moons) of the fresh new year.

But it places us in a moon-haunted darkness for a few days first.  Jesus is arrested tonight (the Thursday before Easter, Maundy Thursday).  He is executed tomorrow (the Friday before Easter, Good Friday).  And all creation appears abandoned by his absence the following day (Easter Eve, Holy Saturday).

Nothing happens on Holy Saturday

 

Good Friday’s grief and drama were yesterday.  Easter Day’s surprise and celebration will be tomorrow. 

The church has an extraordinary wealth of prayers and activities for yesterday and for tomorrow, because the death and resurrection of the Lord is the pivot on which everything turns for us. 

But it doesn’t for today, because nothing happens today.

Many churches use the empty day to spring clean and to deck the church out ready for tomorrow. 

But this year the church can’t distract itself by being busy like that.  We simply have to sit and wait. 

Perhaps that has always been the point.  We sit, we wait, and we long for God’s promise to become real around us.

There will be a tiny shock of recognition for those doing so who turn the pages of our daily service book to find a prayer composed for today and used for several years. 

It is difficult to think it wasn’t written in the last few days for our situation: 

In the depths of our isolation

we cry to you, Lord God:

give light to our darkness

and bring us out of the prison of our despair.

So, this year, let us not rush on too quickly to trumpet the resurrection which we always know is very close. 

Let us wait alongside those for whom it is not yet close.   

With those in isolation around us,

with those who cry,

with those who cry to you, Lord God:

we pray for the light you promise

not seen by those now enveloped by darkness;

we pray for the hope you promise

no whiff of which reaches those now enmeshed in despair;

we pray for the freedom you promise

no rumour of which is heard by those now most confined;

we pray for love you promise

    not savoured by those now misused;

we pray for resurrection you promise

    not touched by those now held in doubt.

For many it has always been true that the leap from grief to joy has not been instantaneous.  As nothing happens today, we wait and pray alongside them. 

For ourselves, there are also things for which we long (an interesting word in itself). 

If this is the right sort of praying to do today, it is beautiful that the Archbishops’ recent message speaks of us all at the moment “living through a prolonged Holy Saturday”.

We will not see an end to the present crisis any time soon.  But we will do so.

We will not be able properly to celebrate Easter for a little while yet.  But it will come.