Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!
Easter Sunday 2020 has come and gone with empty sanctuaries BUT also with an empty tomb! That is the good news for us but doesn’t diminish our feeling of loss not being with our dear friends and families to celebrate Christ’s resurrection.
For a brief time I would like to take us back in time to Holy Saturday. It is a day that we tend to ignore—we are busy getting ready for Easter Sunday. As a Stephen Minister leader, I find the feelings present at the first Holy Saturday are feelings so many of us experience at various times in our lives.
It is the day in between—the day of dull numbness after the events of the pre-vious twenty-four hours—the day when there is no hint that the pain and fear of the moment will ever abate.
- What did the disciples do?
- How did they comfort each other?
- Did they even try? Or might they have stumbled through that Sabbath completely oblivious to what was going on around them, fearful of a suddenly and frighteningly unknown future, and as yet unable to even imagine put-ting the pieces of their lives back together?
Sounds like us right now I think! How will we put the pieces of our lives back together? I think the feelings of that long ago Holy Saturday are here today. For each of us has gone through moments of tremendous disappointment and loss and we know firsthand that often, the true low point of those experiences is likely not the actual and concrete event, when the sheer shock of the catastrophe—social isolation—so many sick and dying—effectively mutes our feelings and offers an odd shelter. No, the hardest days are usually the ones after-ward.
As our world slowly begins living a new normal there will be hard days for all of us. Right now our Stephen Ministers are not able to meet with anyone in per-son of course but that will change slowly. Would it help to just have prayer together? Please feel free to email me and we can have prayer together. Are you thinking that it would really help to have someone just to talk with? Please contact Sue Kuhn and she can put you in touch with a Stephen Minister. —Pastor Peggy