Lenten Reflection #40

Holy Saturday is a weird, in-between time, usually neglected in the Protestant tradition. But it, like Good Friday, is integral to Easter. In the early church, it was the day that Jesus “descended into hell” to bring out the souls of the righteous. But Holy Saturday is for us the time of waiting, of uncertainty, of anxiety. One door has closed, the other has not yet opened. What is this strange hallway between them? Is it really, as noted humorously in an earlier reflection, hell? It sure can feel like it. But psychologists and anthropologists have another name for it. They call it liminal space, from the Latin word for “threshold.” It is an ambiguous space, a marginal No-Man’s Land of indeterminate boundaries, where we are no longer what we were, but not quite yet what we will be.

Liminal space is, in short, a hidden realm where the work of God unfolds. It is the place where the real work of transformation occurs. It is, in many respects, a peregrinatio of our inward being—a pilgrimage to which we called, but with no clear sense of our goal or destination.

Liminal space is the invisible space where essential things happen, but out of sight. Think of roots growing in the dark earth, going down, before any sprout breaks the surface. Imagine a spring-fed lake, into which flows water from some deeper source underground. Think of the transformation in the disciples, who somehow turned their devastation and fear into an experience of the living Christ.

Thinking It Through

Some of you have learned from previous sojourns in this space to welcome it as a time of creativity, also as a sign that you really have separated yourself from the old and are making progress toward the new. But even knowing this doesn’t make it easier, nor does it shorten how long a person stays “betwixt and between.”

I know of only one way to traverse that hallway, and that way is trust in God—trust that this hallway does lead to another door, and I will cross that threshold. And, somehow, all will be well. We have the supreme example of this trust from Jesus of Nazareth, who by his faith and trust in God was transformed into the living Christ. But first he had to—we have to—live through Holy Saturday, that strange day when everything is suspended between what was and what will be.

The disciples went to bed the night before Easter not knowing what the next day would bring. As we finish this time together of Lenten reflections, let us also go to bed on this night before Easter with some of that uncertainty. We know what happened in the Gospel stories, but we don’t know what will happen in ours.  May you dream tonight in liminal space, and may you be surprised tomorrow. What will you find when the stone is rolled away and you cross your own soul’s threshold?

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb . . .” (John 20:1).

Prayer

Let all that is within me bless your holy name. Amen and amen.