Jim: I began this dialogue confessing that I wanted Easter Sunday 2015 to be different. I didn’t want us going home after church following another year of hearing the Easter Sunday gospel readings and trying to rationalize why a Father God had insisted that a good son should die for the sins of others …only to be rescued and resurrected 3 days later. I wanted intelligent people to think beyond the characters in the story. I wanted the Easter Story to become again that incredible metaphor which revealed an important truth about life. I wanted the Easter Story to become again that story of hope which related to the every troubling situation we encounter in life.
I didn’t want people taking the Easter Story out of its context this year. I didn’t want people taking the Resurrection Story out the context which included Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, and ‘then’ an eventual Easter Sunday experience. We always run into trouble when we take things out of context.
This year I wanted to recover the message Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday are meant to offer to a world where people need ritual; to a world where people who do not have ritual in their lives, do not do so well. I wanted to recover the message that there are surprising moments in life – there are always surprising moments in life which can occur following the struggles and difficulties of life, and even after something really tragic has taken place. I wanted to recall the words of the Rev. Dr. Ed Searcy concerning Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday – words which I have shared from this pulpit before.
A number of years ago the Rev. Dr. Ed Searcy led the theme addresses at the Annual Meeting of the Maritime Conference. He had come to Sackville, NB all the way from Vancouver where he was minister at University Hill United Church on UBC Campus, and also the campus of Vancouver School of Theology. It was the Rev. Dr. Ed Searcy’s assertion that we all live in Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. Good Friday represented the calamities and crises of life; the deaths, the disasters, the tragedies, the upsets, the endings that are a part of life. Good Friday experiences leave us numb; Good Friday experiences leave us confused. Good Friday experiences can hurt very badly. Ed Searcy asserted that Good Friday experiences can be some of the most painful and upsetting moments of life. Good Friday experiences are the difficult experiences and endings which occasionally overtake us. Good Fridays, like Holy Saturdays and Easter Sundays are a part of every life experience.
Next Ed Searcy explained that Holy Saturdays represented that period of time where we try to make sense of what has just happened in a Good Friday moment. Holy Saturdays represent that time immediately following a Good Friday experience. Sometimes our Holy Saturdays can continue for a very long time. Sometimes it takes a long time to absorb and process a Good Friday experience. In fact, the experience of Holy Saturday would never ever be as simple as a short 24 hour affair. Ed Searcy advised his listeners not to rush through their Holy Saturday times of life. The Holy Saturday experience is that time of discernment and reflection which every person needs following a Good Friday experience. Holy Saturdays require our patience, our endurance, our pondering, our contemplation and our openness. You can’t go from Good Friday to Easter Sunday without first experiencing Holy Saturday. Easter Sundays cannot happen without Holy Saturdays happening first. Easter Sunday is the child born out of the Holy Saturday time of discernment and reflection.
Ed Searcy concluded his three days of theme presentations by explaining the Easter Sunday occurrence and saying that the Easter Sunday represented that moment of incredible breakthrough. Easter Sunday represented that moment when you could finally begin moving forward from a Good Friday experience. He said that Easter Sunday moments only came about when Holy Saturday reflection had been permitted to follow a Good Friday experience. Easter Sunday moments found their way into our Holy Saturday periods of discernment in ways that sometimes took us completely by surprise. For Ed Searcy Easter Sunday represented that moment when people were finally able to come to an understanding of things, that moment when people were finally able to begin getting some perspective on their Good Friday upsets or tragedies. Easter Sunday happened as people began recovering perspective and began believing once again in tomorrow’s possibilities. Ed Searcy argued that we live in Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.
Val: Each of us can think of many Good Friday experiences in our personal lives – and how we needed time (Holy Saturday time) before ever experiencing Easter Sunday. Could we also say that re-examining some of our beliefs has been like a Good Friday experience because we have had to mark an ending for some of our former beliefs, former comfortable ways and certain completely unquestioned assumptions?
Jim: I would say that for all kinds of people, the journey to changing formerly unquestioned beliefs and assumptions can be a painful Good Friday experience …and Good Friday experiences need to be followed by Holy Saturdays of reflection, contemplation, reconsideration, questioning, rethinking, discernment etc. For if there is no Holy Saturday there will be no Easter Sunday; there will be no resurrection, no new life, and no new perspectives!!
The Easter story declares that our Good Friday experiences must NOT end in total discouragement and hopelessness. The Easter story pleads for Holy Saturdays to follow every Good Friday. The Easter story reveals that Holy Saturday is the place where we pause and re-evaluate. Holy Saturday is the place where clouds eventually lift, the place where the fog, in time, clears and the way forward eventually begins to present itself. The Easter Story maintains that ‘Good’ will always rise again.
Can you believe that ‘Good’ always rises again? Can the community of which you are a part believe that ‘Good’ is undefeatable …that it will always return one day?! We are called to join the journey of becoming true Easter people.