For people trying to figure out what it means to follow Jesus, Easter is an emotional rollercoaster.
As we celebrate his death and resurrection, Jesus' final week in Jerusalem plays in Hi-Def on our internal cinema screens.
We read Matthew's account and imagine the triumphal entry, the cleansing of the temple and Jesus preaching the seven woes and some of the most challenging parables we can imagine.
We read John's account and our screens darken as the scenes are no longer lit by the sun in Jesus' outdoor ministry. Instead, John fills our minds with the candelight and intimacy of the Last Supper. We see him wash the disciples' feet. We hear his teachings and his prayer for them. We hear his prediction of being betrayed and led away.
Jesus goes up the Mount of Olives to pray and, before long, his accusers arrive, led by Judas who betrays him with a kiss. The disciples, still so young, so naive and so lacking in understanding, rise up. One draws a sword and slices of the ear of the High Priest's servant but Jesus brings the violence to an end, shouting 'No more of this!'
He heals the ear of his enemy and submits to him with these words that echo through two thousand years of painful human experience,
'But this is your hour,
When darkness reigns.'
As we well know, he is arrested, found innocent and yet condemned before he is crucifed. At noon, darkness descends on the city. At three, Jesus breathes his last, crying out to a sunless sky and what feels like an absent God. The earth shakes. The temple curtain is torn in two. The Messiah is dead.
These scenes are easy but painful to imagine. Two days later, he raises from the dead, defeating death and changing everything, scenes that easy and joyful to imagine.
What I (and we) don't need to imagine is the day between. The Dark Saturday. The day when the Son of God was dead. I don't need to imagine it because it is what most of us have experienced.
I did not see him die.
I did not see him rise.
But I know what it's like to live in the space between.
To live in the space where it feels like darkness reigns.
Saturday is the space between the war being won and the war being over.
It is the space between the promise given and the promise fulfilled.
It is the space where despair seems logical and hope seems like foolishness.
It is the space between 'It is finished' and 'I am making all things new.'
It is, for so many, the reality of our daily lives.
This year, it is the most poignant moment of Easter for me, the moment that speaks to me the most because I don't need to imagine it. I live here.
But faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we have not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
On Dark Saturday, we declare what we hope in the face of what we endure.
That he died.
That he rose.
That he was, is and is to come.
That he will put the world to rights.
That the story is not over.
That he will one day make all things new and make his dwelling among us.
For the disciples, the darkened sky did not abate when Jesus breathed his last.
The darkness only broke when he breathed again.
'But this is your hour,
When darkness reigns.'
Darkness will not reign forever. His hour is coming and his hour has no end.