Triduum: Saturday, Waiting for Something We Can’t Explain

After everything that happened and everything I witnessed, all I wanted to do was sleep, but I couldn’t. The day kept flashing through my mind…

I heard his last words from the cross: “It is finished.” I saw the spear pierce his side and what looked like water and blood pour from him. I stayed close by not because I was brave but because I couldn’t take my eyes from him. But if you asked me why I wouldn’t have been able to explain. I just know there was something about him, the way he moved toward me for the first time in that upper room, the way he knew me and called me by name. As if he knew me all along. So I stayed and waited.

Sometime before sunset a man came and told the women — including Jesus’ mother — that he had permission to take the body. He told the women that he would take care of it, that he had a tomb nearby where he would take him. They seemed grateful. One less thing to worry about.

Another man, a rich Pharisee, arrived carrying a huge jar of ointment. The men saw me standing there and asked for my help, handing me burial cloths to carry. With the women, we walked as a small group together toward the tomb, carrying the body and everything needed for the burial, each of us sharing our first encounter with him, prompted by some deep need to remember. To re-member. To put the pieces back together.

“I came to him one night asking what I needed to do to be saved,” said the pharisee with the jar. “He said I needed to be born again. I’m beginning to understand what that means.”

“Like so many, I just heard him speak and couldn’t help but follow and believe,” said the man who came with permission to take the body. “I was a secret disciple because I was afraid. But no more of that. No more secrets.”

“I was minding my own business, mending my nets with my brother,” said one of his followers. “Then nothing was ever the same. Nothing will ever be the same.”

“He healed me, drove the pain from me,” said a woman. “He changed my life.”

“I held him as a baby,” said another woman. “Even then, there was something about him.”

“I felt him stir inside me,” said his mother.  

They all turned and looked at me, asking for my story, even though I was young and used to being ignored. I stopped. Tears filled my eyes. I remembered his eyes, his touch, his smile.

“He called me by name,” I said. “He washed my feet. He called me to his side. Why did he do that? Now he’s gone and I’m not sure what to do.”

“There’s still work to do,” said the disciple. “There’s something to carry. There’s a story to tell. There’s always someone who is hungry…thirsty…in need. There’s always a need to fill and you will always have something you can offer. I promise you that. We need you. There’s a ‘we’ now, and you’re part of it.” 
  
Never had anyone talked to me like that before. I was needed. Even me, even then. Even now.

Arriving at the tomb, the women anointed the body and wrapped him in a shroud, according to Jewish custom. The men laid the body inside the tomb and rolled a large stone across the entrance.

No one wanted to leave. We were waiting for something we could not explain. 

Note: A number of years ago, when I was praying my way through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, I “met” a younger version of myself in my prayer and journaling, and it is still a practice I return to from time to time. This adolescent perspective for some reason allows me to see in new and clearer ways just what is going in me when I read and pray with the stories of Jesus. So this is my imagination and my “reading between the lines” of scripture, although I’ve tried very hard to not change the meaning or impact of the original words. They are powerful on their own.  

Image by Wiesiek Pasko, Pixabay