Have you ever been stuck?
Stuck in a place you don't want to be?
In a place where the voices in your head are whispering "you'll always be stuck here. Nothing will ever change, and you'll never survive 40 years of this. or 40 days. or 40 minutes."?
I have. I get stuck in those kinds of places more often than I'd care to admit. But I know I'm not alone. You know why? Because I have imaginary friends.
Well, kindof, lol. I do have a hyperactive imagination, and so, when I meditate on Holy Saturday- the day between Jesus' death on the cross and the day he rose again, I think about the disciples and how they must have been feeling. Scared. Trapped. Devastated. Hopeless. The man they believed would fulfill all their hopes, dreams, and expectations for themselves and for their country died. On a cross, yesterday.
He's buried.
I can feel the quiet shock of terror in their hearts after the bombshell of grief exploded and turned their world upside down. I imagine them sitting still and heavy- unable to think or find motivation. Unclear about what they will do next. Where will they go? Who can they trust? Did they follow the wrong man? Clearly he cannot be the savior. How much danger are their lives in if they are identified as followers of Jesus? And a dull darkness overshadowing their brains as they struggle to concentrate on those questions but just. . . can't.
Those disciples did not remember all the prophecies about Jesus or the very words he had said to them- that he would rise again after three days. They couldn't. Honestly, I can't imagine how they survived that awful, death-shadowed Saturday.
But here's what I do know. They did survive. And Jesus rose from the dead. Things changed. They changed in a moment. And things do change, will change. I'm not going to tell you that your "Saturday"- whatever that situation is- will get better. I don't know that. Sometimes things get worse before they get better. But I do know that it will change. And while perhaps it's too much to ask that you or I believe that our situation will come to life again, perhaps we can cling to the belief that it will change. And maybe, just maybe, we can allow ourselves to risk that dangerous hope that our very own Sunday will come someday.
