Alienation

Alienation

The state or experience of being isolated from a group or an activity to which one shoujld belong or in which one should be involved

 

28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture)"I thirst." 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch andlain held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said,"It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

John 19:28-30 ESV

Growing up in and being apart of the church, I have noticed that there is a segment of the Christian tradition that goes from Maunday Thursday, to Friday and asking Jesus if He is dead yet, completely skipping Holy Saturday and going straight to Resurrection Sunday. I think skipping Holy Saturday is allowing us valuable time to reflect on the importance of Gods sacrifice, realizing that God actually died and forcing us to actually be present with ourselves, each other and with God

The first value that Holy Saturday brings is that without Gods sacrifice, we would still be dead in our sins. Yes I know that the resurrection is the completion of Gods work and it as weird as it may sound, Jesus resurrection killed death. The death of sin, destruction and death itself can not be made possible without Christ actual Christ death on the cross. Just as the Apostle Paul states in Romans 5 that just as death entered through one man in Adam, life eternal will enter through one man in Jesus. Our sin and disobedience needed to be atoned for if we ever wanted to have our relationship restored with God.

Sin separates us from God because God is Holy and that His perfection does not allow sin or disobedience to stand in His presence. Sin and holiness are like oil and water, they are essentially oil and water, they do not and can not mix. There are only two ways that sin can be dealt with. The first one is judgement which leads to condemnation and death. The second way is for forgiveness and for our relationship to be made right. The only way forgiveness is made possible is a perfect sacrifice to be made. This means that something or some one that is perfect takes our punishment for our disobedience. In the Old Testament, this was a lamb that was without blemish. Jesus is the only person that fits the perfect sacrifice to end all sacrifices because He was Gods only Son and He was sinless. Our sin demands a response and Jesus took the death and banishment that was rightly ours and placed it on Himself so that we may have eternal life.

The second value of Holy Saturday is that God actually died and is sitting in the grave. I think we often over skip this because it might make us uncomfortable that the Creator of the Universe is sitting in the grave and all hope is lost. This is where I think alienation really comes in. How many times in our lives where we thought that God was actually dead or at least not responding to us and our prayer time has become so stale that we just quit doing it. Or how about us praying for cancer or any other medical issue to be healed and it never was. When we feel like we have been alienated by God, we think that He does not exist, or does not have the power to intervene. Or we come to the conclusion that God is a thug who gets His jollies off of seeing His creation suffer. No matter how hard we demand answers from God, we feel either that He has either abandoned or alienated us and we feel hopeless, angry, frustrated, depressed, or any other number of emotions. The beauty of Holy Saturday is that we are given the opportunity to wrestle with these feelings and emotions. We can always run away or minimize them, but Holy Saturday is calling us to wrestle with God and to ask ourselves the question of is God going to stay dead. The Old Testament is littered with promises that God will not only be put to death, but also rise again (Isaiah 25:8, 53:5 Job 19:25)

The third value of Holy Saturday is it forces us to be present. One of the things I constantly observe in the break room at work is that there can be a group of people sitting at a table not saying a word because they are all on their phones. I am guilty of this as anyone and are we really mortgaging the gifts of being present in the here and now for something that we really can not feel, touch and for those wants and emotions that fleeting. When we are not physically and emotionally available in the present we are saying that ourselves and others do not have value or our smart phones have a greater value than those who we are sitting with. Jesus tells us to stay focused on today because tomorrow has its own issues. This does not mean we should not be prepared, but it is focusing what is important for today and this will help set up tomorrow when it comes. Just a reminder, we are not guaranteed our next breath, so getting worked up about tomorrow is pointless. The chances of an error is greater is when the baseball player thinks about throwing the ball to first base before they even have the ball in their glove. So lets stay focused on what is important and what is in front of us before we move on.

I will close with this. I was did an internship at a hospital with the Spiritual Care team and I was talking with a patient who was in long term rehab and he received the news that his son had died and he could not make it to the funeral. I was not completely present with the patient and I was focused on his issues and I was not letting him grieve the death of his son and not being able to go to the funeral. Being present, even in the difficult times when it is the hardest allows us to understand, hear and to be heard. Here are some questions worth pondering

How often in difficult times, are we like the disciples and go to what we know instead of trusting Gods promises?

What are those areas that need our attention and presence, that we either skip or gloss over?

What is the most challenging thing to being present?