Saturdays

What is Saturday like?  For me, the best Saturdays are often the ones that aren't planned out.  Those are the Saturdays when I can sleep late, or I can get up before the rest of the family, knit and watch reruns on TV.  The best Saturdays are the ones when we wonder around and dream, thinking about the possibilities of what might be.  How would we redecorate the family room?  When we have the time to redo the bathroom, how will we do it?  Saturdays with a movie thrown in are great.  Saturdays with dinner out, maybe with some friends, are a bonus.

But that's not the kind of Saturday I mean.

What about the Saturdays between Good Friday and Easter?  I'm (still) reading "Who is this man?: The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus" by John Ortberg.  The chapter I read this morning was called Saturday.  He says:  "On Saturday, in addition to the pain of Friday, there is the silence and absence of God."  What about those kind of Saturdays?  What about the time of grief when God seems absent?

He goes on to say:

The Apostle's Creed says Jesus descended into hell.  Somehow no suffering you go through is suffering Jesus will not endure in order to save you.

Ortberg asks if we can see the miracle of Saturday in the bright brilliance of the miracle of Resurrection Sunday.

Now on Saturday the angels look down and see what?  God in a tomb.  The miracle of Sunday is that a dead man lives.  The miracle of Saturday is that the eternal Son of God lies dead.

Prevenient grace is such that even when we don't realize the presence of God, even when we would swear God is absent, God is there.