The Quiet Saturday

How quiet that first Holy Saturday must have been.  After the din of crowds and screams.  After the smell of blood and death and suffering.  After the wind pulling at their robes and ripping the tears out of their eyes and flinging them to the dirt where three outstretched shadows gave mute worship to the figure above.

To spend the day – the day of worship – mourning.  No joy in the traditional liturgies.  No comfort in the stories of freedom and release and a God saving with a might hand and outstretched arm.  Only an empty chair around the table.  

Good Friday is powerful enough.  It’s hard to imagine the grief and pathos of Good Friday extending for another day.  Waiting not for celebration, but for the bitter privilege of anointing a corpse.  No hope.  No joy.  The quietness is deafening.  The Light of the world lays in the cold, dark tomb.