It’s very quiet in the Sanctuary this morning.
I came in early to prep the details for our Easter celebration service (Sunday morning, 6:00am, 8:15am, 9:30am and 10:45am). I made a pot of coffee, filled my cup and made my way to the Sanctuary. Somewhere in the distance in the building I can hear the sound of metal folding chairs banging around as Rick, on our custodial staff is busy setting up for a full morning of worship tomorrow.
In the Sanctuary, before I turned on all of the lights, I just stood and looked at the bare chancel, stripped of all color and light. It’s so quiet that you can almost hear your own heartbeat.
The sanctuary is poised and waiting. Tonight’s worship (5:00pm) will be a vigil; a service of waiting. The whole sanctuary feels quiet and empty, but with anticipation and hope for what we all know comes tomorrow: Bright…color…music…celebration… laughter…friendship…peace…
But for now, it waits. It’s in that awkward in-between time.
Much of our life feels like we’re in that awkward, in-between time, doesn’t it? We live in a place between our history, and our hopes. It feels like we are perpetually on the journey, and never quite at the destination. We have a sense for what we (and God!) want the world to be like, and try as we might, we never seem to get there.
We are stuck, in-between. And this day, this Holy Saturday, stuck between the crucifixion on Friday and the Resurrection on Sunday, it is a metaphor for much of our lives. This is why hope is so critical. Because people who experience this sense of “in-between” but do not hope can easily slip into despair. But for people of faith who have hope, we know that this “in-betweenness” is not a permanent state. We’re past the Good Friday in our life, and we have faith…we believe that Easter is coming. Easter is coming. And with Easter will come resurrection of our Lord, and the renewal of our Spirits. While we are in-between, we are not in-between people. We are Easter people.
And so we wait, and we hope. We think back and look forward. We grieve our losses, and anticipate what we know God will do next. Today, God is at work.
While we wait.
Waiting with you,
Pastor Todd
Test Driving Theology 