And then we wait.

The work is done, and now we wait in humble, enduring trust.

On this Saturday, it is quiet. The intensity of Friday is no longer. The quiet, mixed with the lingering questions, provides a different kind of intensity. Saturday may feel a bit dark. The suffering of the wilderness is a companion of sorts, and then the quietness of waiting companions in a different way. Over the centuries, one of the most significant descriptions of silence and waiting is dark night of the soul. Dark night of the soul is an experience of forsakenness. We may hear echoes of “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Psalm 22:1)

A dark night of the soul is not the suffering itself but the silence that is present as we wait for something new, something unrevealed. The silence can be deafening unless we are able to rest into it, knowing that the pattern of death to life is surely at work. For the people of Israel, they understood there was a destination. They still struggled. For the disciples on that first Saturday between cross and resurrection, there was apparently a measure of disbelief. The disciples from Emmaus made their preparations to head back home. (cf. Luke 24:13) The eleven gathered together and had hardened their hearts. (cf. Mark 16:14) 

As we walk through our own wilderness, we may find ourselves in a place of disbelief … even hardening our hearts … struggling to keep an open, trusting heart. In these moments, we may become aware that we have been trusting our own understanding rather than trusting God Himself. We want to know … to grasp what is happening! On Saturday, we know very little, if anything at all. We are invited to pray a prayer like “I don’t understand you, but I trust you.” (Basilea Schlink) 

In Psalm 22, the words that follow the cry of feeling forsaken are these: “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.”

Pausing here for a moment: in the darkness of Saturday, can you let go of understanding and move toward trust? Don’t move along too quickly. Feel the weight of not knowing and rest in the One who does know … the One who holds your life. Can you sit with that word “yet” from Psalm 22? This leads us into a freedom in the empty space that makes what is coming even more profound.

Jacques Philippe, in Interior Freedom, suggests: “It is natural and easy to go along with pleasant situations that arise without our choosing them. It becomes a problem, obviously, when things are unpleasant, go against us, or make us suffer. But it is precisely then that, in order to become truly free, we are often called to choose to accept what we did not want, and even what we would not have wanted at any price. There is a paradoxical law of human life here: one cannot become truly free unless one accepts not always being free! To achieve true interior freedom, we must train ourselves to accept, peacefully and willingly, plenty of things that seem to contradict our freedom. This means consenting to our personal limitations, our weaknesses, our powerlessness, this or that situation that life imposes on us, and so on.”

On this in-between day, reflect on the ways that you are in-between … incomplete … unknowing. You are in this place because something has died. You have been led to stop fighting, stop avoiding, stop resisting. Now, you accept the emptiness because it means that God has graciously allowed death. As you prepare today for resurrection, remember that resurrection is meaningful because something has died. Hold onto that hope in order to fully experience the hope of Sunday.

Thomas Merton wrote, “No despair of ours can alter the reality of things or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there … we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.” Today, we wait at the edge of the dance floor in trust and in hope, and tomorrow we dance. Perhaps, we tap our foot a bit even today as we know what is coming. 

Question for reflection: today, simply reflect on where you are in the movement from “death to life.” What is it like to be in the in-between? In this space, can you pray: “yet you are holy?”

Prayer: “God, I so much want to be in control. I want to be the master of my own destiny. Still, I know that you are saying: ‘Let me take you by the hand and lead you. Accept my love and trust that where I will bring you, the deepest desires of your heart will be fulfilled.’ Lord, open my hands to receive your gift of love. Amen.” (Henri Nouwen)