St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
April 19, 2025
Holy Saturday
Job 14:1-14
Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16
1 Peter 4:1-8
Matthew 27:57-66
New Life Starts in the Dark
Today is Holy Saturday, the most shadowy, the most unknowable, day of the Christian Year.
By now, the Palm Procession seems like a distant memory.
We have long since digested the Last Supper.
The horror and suffering of Good Friday is mercifully ended.
And Jesus, Jesus is dead – really dead – in the sealed and so very dark tomb.
We all know that even very faithful and devout Christians, even the ones who attend other Holy Week services, skip over this shadowy and unknowable in-between time.
No judgment at all – I get it.
Believe me, I know that there’s a lot to do to get ready for Easter.
And, maybe, for some, this day is just too uncomfortable, too unsettling, too sad – and so we look the other way, move on, and busy ourselves preparing for tomorrow’s most joyful feast.
So why are we here?
Why is it important to be here?
Well, for one thing, today is a most powerful reminder that in and through Jesus, God has fully entered the human experience, from the helplessness of infancy to the heartbreak of rejection and now, even to death itself.
Something new for God, perhaps. To taste death.
How loved we are that the God of Life would endure all of this for all of us.
And Holy Saturday also reminds us that no one witnessed the Resurrection itself, not even Mary Magdalene who, as we’ll hear again tomorrow morning, was the first to meet the Risen Lord in the garden.
No one witnessed the Resurrection.
That fact reminds me of a favorite quote from Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and writer.
She writes, “…new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”
“New life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”
New life starts in the dark.
All of you gardeners know that already.
And all of us Christians should know it, too.
It got very dark in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, when the Son of God was betrayed, rejected, tortured, and killed.
It was very dark in the tomb.
And, today, our world – and maybe our own life – seems very dark, too.
But, on this shadowy, unknowable, and overlooked day, we hope, and we trust.
We hope and we trust because, especially on Holy Saturday, we know that new life starts in the dark.
Amen.
Posts
