An Incomplete Easter Homily

It's easier for me to show you than tell you the message of this one.

Photo by Stephan Louis on Unsplash

I am writing this on Holy Saturday. In the Christian tradition, especially among Catholics, Holy Saturday marks the day of anticipation between the crucifixion and the resurrection. It seems strange to me. Anticipation is undoubtedly not the word that the disciples would have used to describe their feelings on the day after Jesus’s execution by the government, no more than they would have described that Friday as Good. The words are more appropriate for those who have the benefit of hindsight. We know how the story unfolded. That’s what we commemorate each year during Holy Week.

On this day more than two thousand years ago, however, the disciples did not know how the story would turn out. We don’t know much about where they were or what they were doing on Holy Saturday. Scripture breezes right past that day, as if it was unimportant. Did the disciples participate in their usual Sabbath observations? It’s hard for me to believe that they carried on as usual. They had just witnessed the death of the man whom they had followed for three years, leaving behind their families, their homes, and their work. They had believed him to be the Messiah who would liberate their people. But their hope was in a tomb, tortured to death.

They had no idea whether the same fate would befall them. That turned out to be the case for many of them: Peter, James, Andrew, and Thomas were all later killed because of their faith. The death of Christ did not undo the viciousness of the Roman Empire, but it left the disciples to face it without their crowd-slipping, miracle-working leader. Or so they thought.

My guess is that they were in full fight-or-flight mode, anxiously trying to figure out their next steps. Some may have wanted to foment a revolt in the tradition of the Maccabbees, a group who had organized a successful Jewish rebellion against Greek occupation just two centuries earlier. Others, though, probably wanted to lay low in hopes that the political and religious rulers would forget about them. Maybe they felt the shame of being part of a failed movement.

My hope is that they found peace in the Sabbath, that they realized that they could lean into its quiet and stillness rather than reacting.

I’ve been trying to practice quiet and stillness for the past few months. Every day, it seems, there is some new horrific statement or policy from this administration that prompts an eruption of reactivity. A few weeks ago, I wrote about Trump’s narcissistic-psychopathic tendencies. That includes a perverse sense of pleasure gained from making other people suffer, especially people he devalues. There’s a lot that I cannot control right now, but what I can do is prevent him from colonizing my emotional well-being. So I limit my media exposure mainly to written reports of his antics rather than direct video of him. I cycle between engagement and withdrawal. I meditate, do yoga, and journal a lot. I minimize how much time I spend around people who are complaining but not acting (that’s a recipe for helplessness and despair). I keep pursuing my passions and my vocation.

It’s striking to me that when the resurrected Jesus showed up among the disciples, he didn’t unveil any huge new plan for them. He didn’t lay out a blueprint for a revolution or a government takeover. Instead, he told them to keep doing the work that he had been doing: speaking truth to power even when it costs us, teaching people to love justice and mercy, and taking care of the marginalized. The main difference was that they had to step up and lead the work themselves instead of standing in the background as he did it. And they had to do it knowing what the cost might be.

There’s a sermon in there somewhere. I almost found it. But I’m tired. And it’s rest and resurrection weekend. So that’s what I’m going to do. Because rest does not just fuel resistance. Rest is resistance.

How are you spending this Easter weekend?