Silent Saturday.
I like the Afrikaans term for today on the church calendar. In Afrikaans it is “Stil Saterdag”. It is called “Holy Saturday” or “Black Saturday” in most denominations, it seems.
In yesterday’s post I insinuated that I am a Christian believer. Let me be clear about this now. I am a Christian believer. That is why most of my posts will have some kind of Christian touch. Of course, that doesn’t mean I will never write about other topics.
I started doing some more effort in blogging on 1 April. And it is in this important time on the Christian calendar.
Back to Silent Saturday.
Of course today is the day after Good Friday. The day on which Christian believers think back to the day that Jesus died.
When we, Christian believers in 2021, look back into history, we believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
There is a day between Good Friday and the day of resurrection, though.
Many Christian believers commemorate this day by not listening to or playing music, except maybe sad music. There can, after all, not be a feast when someone has died. Especially if one wants to identify with the most likely feelings that those first followers of Jesus most likely had!
This is where the idea of “silent” Saturday comes from. I decided a few years ago to listen to no music on this day.
Jesus’s first followers most likely experience it as the end of all of their hope. At that stage they still expected a Messiah, a savior, that would free them from the Roman might. So Jesus’ followers where still totally hopeless for any kind of saving on that Saturday.
If one start to think about this experience, names like “Black Saturday” also makes sense. One could also call it “Dark Saturday”. Darkness, as in the moon and stars doesn’t even make a little light during night time.
In one of the formulations of our faith, we say that He “died, was buried and descended to hell”. I do not think that Jesus went to hell. I rather feel that it is a way of saying that Jesus was so drastically separated from His Father, that it felt like actual “hell on earth”… “hell after death!”. Of course, there are also the idea that say that Jesus conquered death – not physical death, but spiritual death. He makes it possible that we can have spiritual life – our relationship with God is repaired. That is why the name “Holy Saturday” also makes sense.
It is also officially the last day of Lent. A time that many churches also commemorate. It includes the 38 days (excluding Sundays) before Good Friday, as well as Good Friday and Silent Saturday. This is also a time in which many people think back on the suffering of Jesus.
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