Apóstoles entorno al Sepulcro (“Apostles around the Grave”), by Albertino Piazza da Lodi [c.1520]
From the deeps I call out to you, O Lord; my Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive to the sound of my pleadings. …
I await the Lord!
My spirit looks––and for His message I am waiting––
my spirit looks for my Lord
more than the watchmen for the morning, the watchmen for the morning.
–from Psalm 130
Today is the Great Vigil, the feast which marks the end of the Lenten season. For the last forty days, we have prayed and fasted to one degree or another. We have acknowledged our own sin and mortality, remembered our need for forgiveness and redemption, and awaited the advent of our Messiah on His royal steed to save us from our distress. Over the past week, the week of His holy Passion, we have grieved as the cheers of adulation turned to jeers of mockery. We have stood by as a best friend betrayed Him with a gesture of feigned affection. We have both pounded the nails into His hands and kissed His feet as He hung on the cross. All this we have done, and tomorrow we will celebrate. But today…
Today is Holy Saturday, the Great In-Between Day, the cosmic sabbath rest of Jesus Christ entombed in stone. A friend of mine once whimsically reflected on this particular Saturday, saying that it always feels like “the deep breath before the plunge.” The sentiment is fitting; today, the clockwork of the entire universe is held in suspended animation. The Three Days (called “triduum” in the church-Latin) are days of activity: on Maundy Thursday, Jesus washes our feet, showing us the way of the cross and teaching us His new command to love and serve and sacrifice for His sake. Yesterday, on Good Friday, Jesus suffers the pain of our atonement, breaking His own body and pouring out His own blood, even unto death. Tomorrow, on Easter Sunday, Jesus rises from the dead and ascends to God in triumph. Yesterday we despaired, and tomorrow we will exult. But today…today is, well, in-between.
Today is also the seventh day, the day of rest. It is a day of nothingness, of darkness and chaos, of anticipating the creative and re-creative work of God. Tomorrow is a day full of life and light, when the Sun rises and fills all the earth with the knowledge and glory of God. The ground will sprout forth its vegetation, the trees stretching out their hands in praise. The sea, the air, the land, all teeming with swarming creatures, will revel in the beauty and grandeur of what God has done for us and with us. And God will say that it is Very Good. Tomorrow, God will speak out into our darkness, “Let there be light!” But all of that is still Tomorrow. For as long as it is called “Today,” it is not Day; it is Night.
Today, the deep covers the earth, and darkness is over the face of the waters. Yet the Spirit of God hovers in the air, looking, yearning, groaning for the redemption of our bodies, of His body. Can you see? The days of creation and redemption and re-creation are all ordered alike: darkness, then light; evening, then morning; death, then life; for first comes the night, and afterward the dawn.
But the Resurrection is not yet come. So we wait, our spirits looking for our Lord, more than the watchmen for the morning…
…the watchmen for the morning…
Reading the Old Testament 