We’ve just passed Easter weekend, one of the most significant dates in the Christian calendar. While much attention is paid to Good Friday, and Resurrection Sunday, we often don’t think much about the silence of what some traditions term ‘Holy Saturday’. But take a minute to empathise with the followers of Jesus in that moment. Everything they’d hoped for, the long-awaited coming of the Messiah, the establishment of a new Kingdom, all the incredible things they’d seen over the last three years – all of it ended in apparent crushing defeat. I’m certain they would have felt hopeless, shattered, and scared. Whilst we know the ending to that story, the followers of Jesus had no idea that hope was just a day away.
I think Holy Saturday can speak to us today. Something I’ve noticed more and more over my years of teaching is a hopelessness creeping into the edges of younger generations. It’s all too easy to give up, to see all the dark things in the world and become convinced that we are incapable of making change, and that the world is doomed regardless of what we do. Whilst Gen Z and Gen Alpha certainly aren’t the first generations in history to experience this challenge, combining it with a perpetually scrolling social feed of negativity is compounding the effect. Even Christians can sometimes be caught up in this kind of historical nihilism, a kind of ‘bunker down and wait it out’ mentality.
We should certainly examine our culture from a critical lens, and challenge the ways in which our world perpetuates injustice, cruelty, and darkness. But in doing so, it’s tempting to become hopeless, especially in a digital and globalised world where the worst parts of humanity are splashed across our social media feeds. Confronted with so much darkness, so much chaos, so much fear, it is all too easy to become drawn into the vortex ourselves and give in to paranoia and nihilism.
But fear is not the answer. After all, God is love, and “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear”, as the writer says in 1 John 4. For a follower of Jesus, it’s important to remember that no matter how the world is, hope is on the way, and it’s my job to engage fully and deeply with our world in order to play my part in setting things right. No matter how dark Saturday might be, Sunday’s coming, and there’s a beauty in holding on to hope even when hope is hard to find. Perhaps, then, the silence of Saturday could instead be an inhaled breath, one held for the hope that’s just around the corner. Or maybe, just maybe, I could see that this hope is actually already here.