Saturday, April 23, 2011

Recognizing the Saturdays

I went for a walk this morning and ALMOST got to see an amazing sunrise.

The morning was heavy and cloudy.  As I came around the corner, I could just make out the hazy outline of a golden orange ball in the sky tucked deeply into the cloud cover.  I love a good sunrise, but this morning, the light was hidden.

It's Saturday after Good Friday.  And I wondered this morning just what Jesus' friends were thinking on this day so many years ago -- post-crucifixion Saturday.  While the rest of their culture busied themselves with celebration around the Passover, their hearts were dark.  Their Light, it seemed, had been snuffed out and was laying buried behind a stone.  Surely they were confused, broken-hearted, lonely, feeling completely in the dark.

But the light was coming.  Victory was just one turn of the sundial away.

I think it's in the "Saturdays" of life that we yearn most for the victory "Sunday" coming.  Isn't it in the dark times that we hold to the hope of the light the most?  I wonder if I fail to recognize those Saturdays, to let those moments open me up to the truth of my own needy state.  That mother in Uganda who is watching her baby die of AIDS or malnutrition or a water-borne illness -- she knows the grip of a Saturday, and so she holds even more tightly to the resurrection ahead.  The young girl in China who has been repeatedly tortured and imprisoned for simply living out the command to spread the word about a Savior -- she bears the scars of many Saturdays, but she knows that she will be glorious in her Sunday.

Truth be told, my lot is a little too easy sometimes.  Maybe in my lack of Saturdays, I miss the beauty of being dragged into a face-to-face confrontation with death and thus coming to know the power of standing in victorious faith closer to my God.  Like the Jews who were busy  with celebration while those who knew the Truth were in mourning, we can certainly insulate ourselves enough to miss the suffering of those around the world, next door, in our homes, or maybe even the pain in our own hearts.

Facing the darkness forces us to seek the Light even more desperately.  We need to feel that need.

But this morning during my walk, finally the dark clouds did clear and turn to whispy vapors, and the sun broke through.  And it was just as beautiful and bright when in full view as it was when the clouds were hiding it from my sight.  The Light never stopped shining, even when I couldn't see it, but when it broke through the darkness, it looked all the more perfect for my having looked a little harder to see it.

So today, I want to look more intently for the Light.  Happy Easter.  Blessings.

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