Living in Saturday

For the past two years, our church has offered a Blue Christmas on the Friday before Christmas. It’s a service designed for those who are hurting or in pain, feeling loss, depressed, anxious, or hurt. It provides an opportunity where you can just feel and not worry about not fitting into the gaiety of the holiday.

I’m writing this on Saturday. Yesterday was Good Friday, tomorrow is Easter and I find myself thinking that this is actually a “Blue Christmas” kind of day, the day in which we ought to offer people a place to come rather than, or in addition to, the Friday before Christmas. Because, as I think about it, we are, or I am, in a perpetual state of Saturday, the day after the tough news and the day before the astounding miracle that is to come.

I know that sounds dramatic, but I find this to be true. Because as a person who prays, praying continuous circles around people, there are many, many that remain in the Saturday. Something has happened…or not happened…and they’re asking me to pray for them. And in my continual prayers, just like with the followers of Jesus on their own Saturday, I have a variety of responses depending on the day or my mood or my faith. Sometimes I’m like the women preparing to care for Jesus’ dead body, going through the motions, facing the stark reality that this is it. Other times, I’m living in shame and despair like Peter because of my lack of faith. Sometimes, like Jesus’ mom, I’m doing my best to remember the promises that were made in scripture, clinging to those promises of God. And other times? I’m like the guys on the Road to Emmaus, returning home, picking up where I left off, as if the joy of before never happened and my prayers are done.

I have good days in the Saturday and I have bad days in the Saturday, but unlike the women, Mary, the disciples, and the 5K walkers, I know Sunday is coming. I have the Holy Spirit and I know that God is not done. I know that He is with me and with those who I pray for, even without looking at His hands and feet. I know that God’s miracles, big and small, are ongoing. I know that my Redeemer lives. That God is here and is moving and working and changing and restoring and rescuing. And even though most of my life is just like the disciples where I have no idea what Jesus is talking about and I have no idea what He’s doing, I still choose to follow. I still choose to believe. I still choose Him. 

Because tomorrow is Sunday and Sunday is spectacular. It’s a day of promises fulfilled and expectations met beyond my wildest dreams. It’s a day where I see Jesus. With me and with those that I pray for. I am, they are, never without him. His appearance may be brief, may be filled with shock, may be drenched in forgiveness; all I know is that on days like this, remembering Sunday, my Saturday is filled to the brim with hope. And my prayer for myself as I pray for others is that I continue to remember, that no matter how hard my life or other’s lives are, Saturday is always, always, always followed by Sunday. And when I remember that, as I am doing today, I have renewed energy to keep praying, to keep believing. To keep living in Saturday.