Choosing Hope on Saturday

Written by Holly Paulette

I received an orchid as a gift soon after delivering our daughter back in December. I have killed exactly 100-percent of the plants entrusted to my care, so, understandably, my husband had little faith in my ability to keep this beautiful orchid alive. After a few weeks of staring at what looked to be a drooping, dead stem poking up from dry dirt, he gave up on me and threw the orchid in the trash can. Appalled, I dug it out and put it right back where it belonged on my windowsill. I shoved an ice cube in its little pot once a week and hoped for the best--mostly to prove my husband wrong, but also because I needed something tactile to hang onto. 

Outside my windowsill, we had just shifted from distant empathy to too-close-for-comfort in the Coronavirus pandemic. The green buds slowly emerging on that stand-alone stem were a hope in the midst of crisis, and I was waiting expectantly for the flowers.

Weeks passed, and one morning, against all odds, I noticed a little white flower had bloomed. Though it felt impossible in the midst of its circumstances (namely having me as its plant mom), life sprung from what was once assumed dead. Of course I was very humble about it all and definitely didn’t immediately wave its success in my husband’s face.

It’s been a weird Holy Week in my little world and, if I had to guess, in the world as a whole. My Kroger ClickList order failed me, so we’ll probably fill Easter eggs with semi-sweet chocolate chips and raisins found in my pantry rather than candy (sorry, kids). Families won’t travel to celebrate, local egg hunts will be cancelled, bunny costumes may stay in storage til next year. Most of all, our church family won’t gather. There will be no corporate “He is risen, indeed.” I hate to admit it, but Holy Week hasn’t felt quite so holy. 

There’s a heaviness in our present day that has overpowered the holy sorrow leading up to our Savior’s death. I’m so much more consumed with mourning this pandemic than mourning my King with a crown of thorns. And it’s understandable--death tolls keep rising. In our quirky little town, the southern charm of friendly smiles is hidden beneath masks. And in our homes, we’re getting weary. Our kids no longer consider this an “extended spring break.” Everyone is getting on everyone’s nerves. 

I feel that same anxious pang in my soul--a much more magnified version of what I felt looking at my poor orchid. My faith in the Creator of the universe has not wavered, but it has changed from its typical Holy Week reverence to a desperate cry for mercy.

He already has saved us from all this earthly pain--but we still have to wait for the fulfillment of that rescue. I’ve been thinking a lot about that Saturday--the day following the crucifixion, the day preceding the empty tomb. Those who loved Him, who walked with Him mere hours before, were faced with a choice: would they lose hope or choose hope? 

Many have pointed out how every day feels like a Monday right now (and that’s true enough), but it might be more true that every day is like the Saturday of waiting. We know Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore, but bless it--today is hard. The Saturday waiting threatens to steal our hope.

Jesus took on our suffering. He’s not only aware of what we’re experiencing today--it’s exactly the thing He willingly walked into and willingly died to redeem. This is not God’s good garden. This is not His promised Revelation 21 new heaven and new earth. This is the messy middle, the result of the fall, the essence of all we’re preparing to celebrate on Easter morning. This is the Saturday, and I’m choosing hope. This Holy Week has been a far cry from normal, but maybe, if we lean into it, it could be more meaningful than we imagined.

Bob Goff once wrote, “Darkness fell, His friends scattered, hope seemed lost. But heaven just started counting to three.”

May we be a people who count to three, hopeful and anticipating the rescue that we know we’re bound for. And may we see signs of hope, like my resilient orchid, and remember John 16:20, when Jesus is speaking to his disciples during the Last Supper--“You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.” 

May we remember that Sunday is coming. 

Deferring Easter? A Thought Experiment

Written by Rhys Bezzant

So here is the thing. Easter this year is going to be flat. The emotional twists and theological minefields of the week before Easter are captured in Matthew’s account of the last week of Jesus’ life, where Jesus persists in making the Kingdom of God--not the law, not the Temple, not the Jewish nation--the centre of discipleship. Some of these themes will be communicated in online services with skill and wise preparation, and our own personal devotions can dwell on some of the horror and hope of the events. However, the rhythm of readings that take us through the week of Christ’s passion, with all its ups and downs, won’t climax as in other years with the reflective services of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, or an Easter vigil for some on Holy Saturday. The exuberant joy of Easter day will be curtailed without the possibility of joining together to break the Lenten fast and to shout in unison that “He is risen indeed.” How wonderful that some Christians have placed a palm cross in the front window of the house, in silent protest that there were no fronds waved in triumphal procession this year. But we all know that it is not quite the same.

Here is my wild blue-sky-dreaming thought. Perhaps we could honour Easter in restrained ways this week and postpone our celebration until later in the year. I understand that the church calendar sets Lent as forty days from Ash Wednesday (not including Sundays), but why couldn’t we extend Lent this year? After all, the word “lent” means “lengthening” of days which happens in the spring-time, so celebrating new birth in April in Australia, when all the leaves are falling off the trees, has always struck me as a mixed message. We may not choose to fast until the spring, but we could decide that foregoing the Lord’s Supper until then is one way of showing solidarity with Jesus who fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness. And anyway, the date of Easter is a moveable feast, falling on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox. I know that conversations are happening (beyond my pay grade) between different branches of ancient European churches to set a regular date for Easter. Not sure what I think about this yet. But in the meantime we could, just could, cash in our chips and go full steam ahead and plan for a September celebration.

So here is my next crazy thought: Easter celebrations normally build on the date of Passover. But the book of Hebrews makes a powerful connection between Jesus’ death and the Day of Atonement as well, which this year is being commemorated by our Jewish friends on Sunday, September 27. We are reminded by the author of Hebrews that, just as the high priest enters the holy place once a year with the blood of animals, so Jesus entered as a high priest into the most holy place with his own blood as a sacrifice of atonement, not once a year but once and for all. Jesus is the better sacrifice, who makes a better covenant: “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb 9:14). The Lord’s Supper, which on the night before he died Jesus commanded us to perpetuate, is not merely an updated version of the Passover without the lamb, but a new practice which combines many threads from the Old Testament, such as Exodus 24 and Jeremiah 31. The Lord’s Supper is no longer a domestic rite like the Passover but a public one, taking this cue from the Day of Atonement which was national in its scope. Blood poured out to cleanse by a divinely ordained priest in the order of Melchizedek is not something that the Passover ever saw as its foundation idea. 2020 is turning out to be an upside-down year, so why not reinvent the church calendar too?

The most amazing thing about conversations and online interactions in the last couple of weeks is that ecclesiology is cool again. As someone who has spent the last twenty years researching and writing on what the church is about, I am overjoyed that an often undervalued doctrine is getting its day in the sun. Taking away the regular pattern of Sunday services, or at least substantially reinventing them in a digital age, has made us rethink what we do and why. Some social commentators are already calling 2020 the Great Pause or the Great Disruption. I like the idea. We have to face our own lack of control of the natural environment, and spend more time at home with those closest to us, even if they aren’t necessarily the ones we would by preference choose to hang out with in a log cabin in the hills. So pressing pause on so many things that we hold dear might turn out to be for our deep emotional refreshment and spiritual recalibration. Pressing pause on the liturgical high point of the year, the celebration of Easter, might just be a blessing in disguise. Or in the best case scenario, we might get to celebrate it twice.