Pondering the first Easter Saturday, I wonder what those first disciples must have felt. All their hope was gone, brutally murdered and now hidden in a tomb to rot. For following Jesus they were now rejected by the synagogue leaders and also being watched carefully by the Roman authorities. We know the end of the story we so often forget what that first Saturday after Jesus was crucified was truly like.
I wrote this poem not only pondering Easter Saturday but also as I was dealing with the grief over the untimely deaths of friends and family I had been praying for God to heal; emotionally, physically and mentally. Pondering Easter Saturday isa good time to think about those prayers we pray that don’t appear to get answered.
The First Easter Saturday
How? What had happened?
What is wrong with the world?
Why is it continuing?
God why can you not make it stop?
Just give us time to grieve.
This is too much.
There was so much promise.
So much expectation.
And now he’s dead.
All hope of promise is gone.
It’s over.
All that we gave our lives for.
All that we gave up.
Gone! Over!
It is finished.
And who cares?
Us few that’s who.
The Passover continues
The people celebrate
They are free at last.
How? Why? Who could have let this happen?
God how could you have let this happen?
You should have stopped it.
He claimed to be your son.
We believed him.
We are walking dead now.
They will come to get us soon.
Gone! Over!
It is finished!
So much of our own stories we are in that middle place between God promising and it coming to pass. Even before the pandemic hit most of us had experienced friends and family dying too soon and too painfully. Or of things we hoped would happen not working out as we had desired, or not working out at all. .
How do we feel when we are grieving, when we are scared and yet other people are celebrating? The Passover was about being free from oppression but the followers of Jesus were under the weight of grief. And grief is a heavy cloak to wear.
I believe God allowed Easter Saturday to remind us all that we need space to think, to grieve, to wonder. I believe, too, that the church calendar has stolen something from us. When you read what Jesus says it is that he’ll be in the earth three days and nights, not the two nights and one day that our church calendars allow.
Easter is a time for healing, as has been the focus for Godspace. My prayer for us all is that we take some Easter Saturday time and grieve for what we have lost and cope with our uncertainty about the future. I believe taking time out to acknowledge our grief before we move forward is one of the keys to healing and not just brushing things under the carpet. Let’s use Easter Saturday for, what I believe, God intended it.
Poem first published on 31st March 2018 on Aspirational Adventures.
For another Easter Poem for 2021, please see Jenneth Graser’s Easter Poem.
More Holy Week and Easter Resources here!
