Save Us
“But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.”
Micah 7:7
Micah, like all Old Testament prophets, had one real mission: to try to call God’s people back into relationship; to not only see, but to embrace God as the source of all comfort, hope, peace and salvation; to avert their eyes, mind and hearts away from competing gods, force, and powers; and to cause reconciliation between Creator and created.
The culmination of the prophet’s work is fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But we do not get to Easter Sunday without moving through Good Friday and Holy Saturday. We need to maintain, even as our eyes strain for sunrise on Easter morn, what St. Martin’s friend, 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey calls a “Cross spirituality.” Such a spirituality calls on us to embrace that the Christian is already dead and yet alive in Christ. If that is the case, then the Christian must embrace the Cross with full force.
In his words:
“I must try to live under the cross daily. I must put my Savior always before me as my example, friend, and guide. I must live a life that pleases him. The problem is that it is hard.” A friend once remarked, 'We are expected to be living sacrifices, but the problem is we keep crawling off the altar.' How right he was! How necessary it is for each one of us to apply the cross to our daily lives — to our giving to one another and to God … Skin-deep Christianity will not endure, but heart Christianity will because it is marked with a cross.”[1]
While there are few references in Holy Scripture, the historic statements of faith of the Apostles Creed of the second century, the Nicene Creed of the fourth century, and the Creed of St. Athanasius of the late fifth or early sixth century all tell us that after His death, Jesus Christ descended into hell.[2] The assumption is that the journey between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, for Jesus, ran right through the depth of all creation, a place of utter abandonment from God’s presence that surely Jesus felt descending upon him when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”[3]
His descent was certainly part of Jesus’s taking our place for our sins. It was his most precious act of love in trying to, like the prophets of old, bring God’s people back to God. This Holy Saturday pause in the story is a horrific silence that calls us to utter humility before what Christ has done in our stead.
I mentioned earlier about my time of service on the Gulf Coast of Florida. It was, in many ways, a wonderful season of my life and ministry among loving and active Christians. Only a short drive from white beaches and crystal-clear waters, hardly a day went by when I was not able to behold the hand of God in the beauty of creation. However, sometimes the beauty could turn wicked, as it did in September 2004.
The waters off of Africa produced one of the largest hurricanes in recorded history, Ivan. The storm grew to the size of Texas and slammed into Pensacola, Florida, as a strong Category 3 hurricane. The worst of the storm lasted nearly 12 hours. When it was over, more than 25,000 homes were either destroyed or had sustained major damage. Hundreds of businesses were affected, several people were killed, and many others were injured.
For all kinds of reasons, my wife and I decided to ride out the storm in our home with our three children. Sometime in the night, we began to feel we had made a terrible decision. The winds were literally howling. News reports a few days later would tell that dozens of tornadoes skipped down through the area and wreaked havoc. We lived a short walk from Escambia Bay where the winds forced the water, which had no place to go, into a 50-foot tidal wave that tore the Interstate 10 bridge in half. Virtually all the homes on the eastern shore of the bay were destroyed. And it was all going on while we were huddled in one room of our house with a small kerosene lamp.
Around 2 a.m. the winds reached their worst. We could hear the crash of trees and limbs falling on every side of the house. The plywood we had used to cover our windows was either beginning to blow off or flap like a playing card. It was then that my wife got out one of our family prayer books and turned to a service that had often brought us comfort in times of incredible distress, Compline.
“The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end. Amen,” we prayed together. Would it be the end? We did not know. We prayed the confession of sin and then the words we repeated again and again until dawn’s early light, “O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us.”[4]
Nothing else gave us peace on that night — not money, health or even our home. We finally had to put all that we were and would be in God’s hands. When dawn came, we emerged from our home. It looked like a giant had walked in a circle around our house; fallen trees literally encircled it.
I am not one who believes God saves this house or that person because he plays favorites. It did not matter how we got through the night, nor did it really matter what went on outside our doors. What mattered was that the only real eye of the storm was holding fast to one another and to God. It was a long, long night, but dawn came again, and we were safe and saved.
The journey between Good Friday and Easter Sunday was a long, long night. In that season of spiritual pregnancy, one can do nothing but wait for what rests with the first sunrise of a world that would soon know Resurrection. And holding on to that alone will not only make us safe, but will also save us.
A Question to Ponder
Think on a “Holy Saturday” in your life. How did you wait that season out? Where did you encounter the peace of God?
A Prayer
Our darkness is never darkness in your sight; The deepest night is clear as the daylight. Stay with me, remain here with me,
Watch and pray, watch and pray.
Wait for the Lord, whose day is near.
Wait for the Lord: keep watch, take heart! Within our darkest night, you kindle the fire That never dies away, that never dies away.
A prayer of the Taizé Community
[1] George Carey, "I Believe," p. 125.
[2] Matthew 12:40; Ephesians 4:9–10; 1 Peter 3:19.
[3] Matthew 27:46.
[4] "The Book of Common Prayer," 128.
