Easter Saturday

I bought a CD last year by the American duo "All Sons and Daughters" entitled "season one". I discovered it when I made use of the listening facility at the Church book shop where I volunteer. It was a slow day and I was intrigued by the rather unusual band name. To be honest I wasn't sure which was the bands name and which was the the name of the album! I was hooked instantly. The duos harmonies were exquisite, the music worshipful with a contemporary feel, their instruments  (Piano and guitar) blending like their harmonies as the melodies both swooped and soared. It had a fairly mournful and melancholic tone but the whole thing was bursting with searing rays of hope throughout. I'm not a music critic, or even musical so I cant be expected to describe it perfectly. All I can tell you is I was so moved by it that I had to buy it then and there. I couldn't afford to and hadn't planned to but I HAD to.

With the CD came a DVD where they performed a few of  their songs with a small discussion about the background of the songs preceding each one. The album seemed to have been written from one of those wilderness periods. This is the "season" they were referring to in the title. The beauty of the title "season one" is that a season two is implicit. In the talk that preceded their song "Buried in the Grave" they spoke about how the church traditionally majors on Good Friday and Easter Sunday but often neglects to make much of Easter Saturday.

But Easter Saturday is resonant with all of our christian experiences. It is a time of waiting. How much of our Journey with God is us waiting on a promise, sitting in the ashes of our shattered hopes. In my experience it is not uncommon. This is what the disciples must have felt like on Easter Saturday. Broken, disillusioned, disappointed, grieving.

An empty ache in disciples hearts,

Their world has fallen apart,

They've been woken with a start

From the sleeping where they dreamt of thrones,

(from my poem "The Emptiness")

 Jesus spoke of a grain of wheat falling to the ground and dying in order to give a harvest that outweighs its original value. We often forget that not only is there a dying but there is a waiting, a being buried. A germination period, if you will.

In life we have our moments of sacrifice and we have our moments of victorious resurrection but much of our life is spent in this growing/waiting period in between. We must not and cannot despise it. God has included it for a reason. We must not despise ourselves either when we do not feel triumphant. This is the time for hope and trust to do their work. Sometimes that means a filtering out of all other false hopes...a pairing down until all we have left is the raw and exposed bare bones of a hope in the promises of God.

But Sunday is coming. God will not be mocked. Ultimately there is no shame for those who have trusted in God and the Son. Imagine how the disciples must have felt when Jesus entered the room. Place yourself there. Hope is our bread and butter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plzxF29AuOQ