It’s Saturday – But Is It Finished?
Luke 23: 54
Throughout the season of Christ’s birth we celebrate Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. Three months later we commemorate Ash Wednesday, Lent, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter.
But what do we call the Saturday that falls between Good Friday and Easter? What is so significant about it? Does it have a special name?
Holy Saturday, the “Sabbath” as it is generically called in our text, seems to merely be a verbal bridge between Good Friday and Easter. The Biblical account devotes one lone verse to it! Not a single Gospel writer records a meaningful event that took place on Holy Saturday.
Yet, in many ways, the Saturday when Jesus was in the tomb should be a significant high point on the church agenda. Saturday must be more than a time when we say, "Yesterday He died and tomorrow He will rise again, but today not much is happening." It should be a red letter day.
"What’s the big deal about Holy Saturday?" some may wonder. For many -- if spring is in the air -- it is an opportunity to wash the car, mow the lawn, take a walk, or just rest in the hammock. Others will buy groceries for tomorrow’s Easter dinner -- or take their kids to an egg hunt.
What happened on Saturday between Good Friday and Easter? To the untrained eye, nothing at all!
If we were to go to the tomb outside of Jerusalem at the crack of dawn on Saturday we would observe little of major significance. The body of a recently crucified man would be on a slab in a tomb -- bloodied, discolored, rigid with rigor mortis. It would be a hideous sight (if we could see it). But we can’t because it is behind a sealed boulder that plugs the entrance.
But in heaven above and on earth beneath, far from our human senses, there is enough activity to change eternity. Demons are raging; some shrieking in fear. Satan has been stripped of all authority and power. Christ has opened paradise, ushering in both the thief who died by Him on the cross, and all those who had believed in the Coming Messiah through the ages.
The angels of heaven are rejoicing. The dead man’s Father no longer has His back turned toward His Son. There is a sense that a celebration is about to erupt at any moment! That is why Saturday is so important on the church calendar.
Yet back in Jerusalem, on the surface of Planet Earth, it is business as usual. If you were to stop the typical person and ask him or her about the excitement of Friday afternoon, inquire about the execution of yesterday, the individual would probably respond: "It is Saturday and it is finished!"
To them then, like to much of our world two thousand years later, "the fat lady has sung". The entire episode is "history". It is finished, kaput, over with, through, concluded, and buried.
If you don’t believe me, go ask that large man, the one who is sobbing, over there by that wall. His name is Simon Peter. A short time ago, in fact only 48 hours earlier, he never would have believed that it would come to this. Others will deny you, he had told his Master, but I never will! (Yet, Simon you did deny your Lord -- not once, but three times.)
Simon can still hear the rooster crowing. He can still see Jesus turning His bloodied face, looking at him over his shoulder, locking eyes, as though to say, "I told you. I told you. But you wouldn’t listen."
Simon Peter convulses with sobs of grief. But no tears come from his eyes any longer. He has no more tears to spill. He’s all cried out. He, the great rock upon which Christ had said he would build His Church, is a has-been. He’s all washed up. Yes, it is Saturday and it is finished, thinks Peter.
The rooster crows again in the backyard of Caiaphas, the high priest. He’s the same rooster Simon Peter heard last night; the same cock who rendered his shrill, lonely indictment. But the cock-a-doodle-doo of the rooster means something different to Caiaphas than it did to Simon Peter.
The rooster crows again in the backyard of Caiaphas, the high priest. He’s the same rooster Peter heard last night; the same cock who rendered his shrill, lonely indictment. But the cock-a-doodledoo of the rooster means something different to Caiaphas than to Simon Peter.
Finally, Caiaphas thinks as he rises from his bed, finally I rid myself of that charlatan. For three years he was a thorn in my side. For a thousand days I plotted and schemed to get rid of Him. And now, oh glorious Saturday morning, it is finished!
Caiaphas casts his eyes around the bedroom. Over in the corner are his tom priestly garments. Granted, it was against the Levitical Law to rip them, but it had been a nice theatrical touch. Maybe it had been the touch which had pushed the rest of the Sanhedrin into voting with him in favor of the death of that Messianic pretender.
Caiaphas thinks to himself: "It s Saturday and it is finished."
Up on the hill, in the fortress, Pontius Pilate washes his hands for the umpteenth time since yesterday. His hands are chapped, red, rough from rubbing. They look clean, he mutters, but they feel ever so dirty.
What is on them, he asks himself. They feel -- sticky. It feels like blood. But it can’t be! That’s ridiculous!
Pilate’s wife is still sleeping, even though it is mid-morning on a Saturday. She usually does not sleep in. She is a charging, Type A personality. But she has not been sleeping well lately. The last several days have been fraught with terrible dreams and nightmares.
In one strange vision she had seen the prisoner Pilate had condemned to death yesterday. She had come to her husband, warning him hysterically not to have anything to do with that man.
And now it is all over. The guards had brought Pilate the news that the lunatic, the one who thought he was some kind of king, the one who wouldn’t even defend himself before him, the procurator, had died rather quickly. Some of the Sanhedrin had come to him afterwards asking for guards to be placed around the tomb let his body be stolen.
These Jews are such strange people, thinks Pilate. Why can’t I put this thing to rest. And why can’t I get this sticky stuff off my hands?
After all, "It is Saturday and it is finished."
Outside the city gates someone, out for a Sabbath walk, comes across a hideous sight. A corpse dangles by its neck from an olive tree. Flies have already begun to gather for the feast. Below the swinging, lifeless form lie 30 pieces of silver.
Those who later investigate the death rule it a suicide and will later discover the man’s name was Judas Iscariot. What were his last thoughts as he tied the knot? No one will ever know.
"It is Saturday and it is finished, Judas."
In a tiny house within the city walls, a woman cries. She had such high expectations for her son. When he had been dedicated at the temple, 33 years before, an old man had warned her: "This child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel ... he will cause you great pain ... it will be as though a sword is piercing through your soul before it is all over."
Now she knows what the old man had been talking about. It feels as though a hot coal is burning in her belly. She writhes in agony. The hurt is greater than the pain of childbirth. She cries out the name of her departed son: "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!"
She thinks to herself, tomorrow I will go with the other women and anoint his body. He is still me son. Tomorrow is Sunday. It will be lawful to anoint his body then. But today – today is the Sabbath.
"It is Saturday and it is finished."
Meanwhile, Barabbas does not feel so bad after spending his first night of freedom following several years of captivity. He touches himself all over, like a man who thinks he may be dreaming. I must be the luckiest fellow alive, he mutters to himself! Those fools, they crucified an innocent man. But who cares-- I’m still breathing!
Barabbas gets up and stumbles down the alley-way. He does not care that it is the Jewish Sabbath. He long since stopped blindly obeying the Levitical laws. Those puny oridnances have been ineffective against the Roman dogs.
All he knows is that the Romans have invaded his beloved Palestine and they must be killed. He has killed once -- and he will do so again. If an innocent man had to die yesterday so that he could continue his mission of liberation, then so be it.
Yes, Barabbas thinks: “It is Saturday and it is finished -- especially for the man in the tomb."
In a beautiful home a short distance outside of Jerusalem, in Bethany, three people sit absorbed in their thoughts. See them there: One man and two women.
The man reflects on the irony of it all. Here he, Lazarus, is well and whole. Jesus raised him from the dead just a few weeks ago! But now Jesus is in the grave – and he, Lazarus, is drinking his second cup of Saturday morning tea and eating a bagel.
Martha, his sister, sits still for once. She is normally a virtual hive of activity! But she is not cooking or cleaning or chattering today.
She is thinking to herself: "I will never fix Him another meal. I will never wash His robe again. I will never be able to bring Him another glass of cool water in my living room. I will never ask him to tell my sister to help me in the kitchen."
And Martha’s younger sister, Mary, sobs quietly. For some strange reason the feature that comes back to her is his feet. The last time she saw his feet, just yesterday afternoon, they had been grotesquely disfigured. Huge nails had been driven into both of them. They did not look like the feet she had anointed a few days before. They were not the feet at which she had sat, listening to wonderful words of wisdom.
See with me this trio, -- Lazarus and Martha and Mary -- captivated by their own thoughts, all thinking much the same thing: "It is Saturday and it is finished."
Well, yes, it is Saturday. And the man this cast of characters is thinking about -- though all differently -- did say: "It is finished!" yesterday afternoon.
But is it really finished? Simon Peter, Caiaphas, Pilate, Pilate’s wife, Judas Iscariot, Mary the mother of Jesus, Barabbas, Lazarus, Martha and little sister Mary, all -- to a man, to a woman -- think so.
So -- what do you think? What do you think?
We all live far beyond the confines of that first Holy Saturday. We know that Jesus will rise, has risen, from the dead. So why continue to make a big deal about Saturday?
Of that Saturday the text only reads: "And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment." Can’t we leave Saturday alone? We have Friday and Sunday – isn’t that enough?
The reason we must make a big deal out of Saturday is because that is where we all live. That is where the most faith-full believers exist every day. The Son of God is dead but it seems that life is going on as usual. Nothing has changed! Something "is terribly wrong!"
This is precisely when our faith must kick in. Everything looks dark and gloomy. But our faith is what allows us to change "It’s Saturday and it is finished" (a statement) to "It’s Saturday, but is it finished?" (a question).
Our question is not laden with doubt, for we ask it on Saturday, where we all now live. Our question has much more certainty in it than the unbelieving statement of the sneering mob – “He said it was finished. Take him at his word. Move on to the next Messiah.”
But our faith shouts back: "No, it is NOT finished!"
His death has taken place, we cry out, but you have not heard the last from Jesus Christ. When He said those three words yesterday afternoon, it was not a phrase akin to the closing of a curtain at a play’s end. The only thing finished on Saturday is sin, death, hell and the grave!
Pontius Pilate will end his days washing his hands in a lake nestled in the Swiss Alps, banished from Rome. Caiaphas will be disassembled and placed in a bone box, which will eventually be displayed in a museum a few miles from where Jesus was crucified. Judas will become a euphemism for villainy and treachery.
But the remaining characters in the cast of that weekend all had a Saturday faith. Instead of looking dejectedly back on Good Friday, they looked forward, with great hope, toward Easter.
And gathered here, tonight, on Good Friday, we are like them. You see, we are all Saturday people in a Good Friday world.
We are Saturday people when we pray against all odds, and expect an answer.
We are Saturday people when we notice that we are aging, but still have hope for a brighter day.
We are Saturday people when a child is born into the bonds of our congregation, and we believe that God can help the new baby to live a good life in this increasingly evil world.
We are Saturday people when we stand by the sick-bed of one of our stalwart saints, and know that God can work even this situation out to His good.
We are Saturday people when we take a small piece of bread between our thumb and finger, look toward heaven, and thank God for His Unspeakable Gift.
We are Saturday people when we lift the Communion cup to our lips, drink its contents, and remember that “this same Jesus” will come again.
We are Saturday people when we hear of wars and rumors of wars, yet have a settled faith that the Prince of Peace is in control.
We are Saturday people when we see a coffin slip into the ground and, in the midst of our tears, can whisper: "I’ll see you again, tomorrow morning."
I don’t particularly like Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter. I want to get on with it. I want to move right into the celebration. I want to leap-frog over Saturday and get to Easter pronto! I want the party, the excitement, the resurrection, to happen quickly.
However, we must wait out Saturday before we get to Sunday. Good Friday was tough for Jesus, but Saturday, that seemingly innocuous day on our church calendar, is when it’s tough for us.
Saturday is the gap between our faith and its fulfillment. It is the bridge between what we believe and what one-day we shall see at His appearing.
Winston Churchill thought he would die young, unmourned and forgotten. Yet he lived a long and fulfilling life.
In his nineties he planned his own funeral. It was to include numerous eulogies, the grand hymns of the church, and portions of the powerful Anglican liturgy.
The grand denouement was to take place after the benediction, when an assigned bugler, in the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, would play a mournful rendition of Taps.
Then, after a lull, when the last echo of Taps was finished, another bugler was instructed to begin playing Reveille! ("It’s time to get up, it’s time to get up, it’s time to get up in the morning.")
Good Friday is our Taps, Easter is our Reveille, and Saturday is the brief lull in between the two. It is a short interval of doubts and shadows. It is when Caiaphas cackles and Peter cries. It is when society mocks us for believing such an absurd, strange story.
On Saturday the world makes its statement: "It is Saturday and it is finished!" On Saturday hell throws its best punch. But on Saturday people of faith ask a question: "It is Saturday, but is it really finished?" And heaven answers -- the next day.
So tonight and tomorrow, before we see the empty tomb, before the angels tell us He is risen, before the great and glorious Resurrection Day, we already believe! That is the nature of faith.
We stand against the tide of humanity. We shout to the heavens: "It is not over. Yes, He has completed His task, but it is not finished."
So, when you get up tomorrow morning, on Holy Saturday morning, don’t go about business as usual. Sit upright in your bed and shout:
"Hallelujah! It is Saturday and, praise God, it is most definitely NOT finished! Jesus will rise shortly! Christ will come back soon! Hell cannot hold Him much longer. Heaven will not keep Him concealed forever. Today may be Saturday, but tomorrow -- tomorrow is Sunday. The best is yet to come! I can hardly wait. Amen!"
