Reflections for Holy Saturday

In the Christian faith, Holy Saturday is the day after Good Friday (the day of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and death) and the day before Easter (the day of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead) . It commemorates the day Jesus Christ’s body lay in the tomb.

Here is a poem written by Isaac Watts (1674 - 1748) . It is traditionally sung to a tune by Lowell Mason (1792 - 1872) :

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of Glory died;
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
save in the death of Christ, my God;
all the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an offering far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

The following poem, written recently by Daniel Jepsen, can be sung to the tune of Londonderry Air. It was published today at the internetmonk website:

Amazing Grace, It Reached As Far As Me

When time was young, and glory filled the garden,
The man and wife refused their perfect place.
Yet in Your wrath, your mercy spoke a promise,
And clothed their sins in garments of your grace.

And I like them, have tasted fruit forbidden
And raised my fist against my Lord above.
Oh strip away the rags of my rebellion,
And clothe me with Thy Holy robe of love.

And on the Rock, you placed Your very presence
When streams of life flowed from the stricken stone
You bore Yourself the price of their rebellion
Their thirst to slake, their sin-guilt to atone.

Thirsty I come, to You the living water
And find a spring, abundant, clear and free
You quench my thirst with rivers of salvation
You save my soul with fountains of mercy.

You gave a day, a day of your atonement
When the High Priest would slay the sacrifice.
And all the sins were taken from your presence
You dwelt with men, by blood the only price.

Guilty I come, and tremble in Your presence
Yet see my guilt placed on a substitute!
I stand and praise my God and my redeemer
He sits and hears the worship He is due.

Then one dark day, the symbols found fulfillment
As all our sin was placed upon Your head
The Rock was struck, and blood came forth to cleanse us
Instead of death, Your tree brought life instead!

I will forever lift my eyes to Calvary,
to see the cross where Jesus died for me.
How marvelous the grace that caught my falling soul:
You looked beyond my faults and saw my needs.

For three dark days, the Seed in earth was buried
But breaking forth, that Seed gave birth to life
The firstfruit of that mighty, kingdom harvest
Which heals all hurts, and takes away all strife

I shall arise with Christ my risen Sovereign
And reign with Him through all eternity
What wondrous love, that makes our Judge our Father
Amazing grace, it reached as far as me
Amazing grace, it reached as far as me!

A Good Friday meditation

[Editor’s note. My atheist readers may want to skip this post altogether, as I ain’t gonna change your minds and you ain’t gonna change mine. Still, I welcome everyone, one and all. --RWP]

I thought they’d be gone by now, but I’m in my fifth week of having shingles and they're still very much here.

Having the shingles on Good Friday can be very instructive.

In western Christendom, today is the annual commemoration of the day Jesus Christ (Hebrew, Yeshua Ha’mashiach, Jesus the Messiah) was crucified around 29 or 30 A.D. (Latin, anno domini, in the year of the Lord), or as the politically correct now say, C.E. (in the common era). In eastern Christendom (the Orthodox churches), this commemoration will not occur until May 3rd.

I told you in an earlier post that shingles were excruciating, and I told you that I pondered the word excruciating and realized it means “out of the cross” or “from the cross.”

I don’t mean to imply in any way that shingles are the worst pain a human can experience. My dad died of pancreatic cancer. My mother-in-law died of bone cancer. My mother died after an eight-year battle with cancer. Each of them experienced excruciating pain.

And then there’s Jesus. He was crucified. He was nailed to a cross.

Shingles are as nothing compared to that.

Historians will tell you that a lot of human beings were crucified by the Roman Empire over the years. So what was so different about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ?

I’m glad you asked.

He had done nothing wrong. He was the Son of God. He was the Lamb who came to take away the sin of the world. And we killed Him.

So now I am in pain and Jesus suffered for me. We have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Praise the Lord! But our attention on this Good Friday should not be on the pain Jesus experienced or on his method of execution but instead on what his death accomplished.

That He died for my sins makes me free from the penalty of sin, which is death (Romans 6:23). That He rose from the dead three days later gives me everlasting life (John 11:25-26). Yes, my body may die, but He will raise me up on the last day (First Corinthians 15:52-57). He is the firstborn of many brethren (Romans 8:29-30).

These things I believe.

I do not follow Him perfectly or as faithfully as I ought to. Nevertheless, I follow Him.

God help me. I’m a Christian.

A do-it-yourself meditation for Good Friday with a little help from Lewis Carroll

If you know where you want to go, it matters a great deal.

Quo vadis?

Died He for me, who caused His pain?

This painting, known as both Cristo de San Plácido and Cristo crucificado, was painted in 1632 by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez (1599 - 1660). The original, done in oil on canvas, measures 248 by 169 cm (67 inches by 98 inches) and hangs in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

The computer image above is too small to see Velázquez’s painting well. Click on it, then click on the next image also, and examine it in greater detail.

It is a fitting way to spend some of your time on this Good Friday.

[P.S. -- It is probably an indication of my great sin and depravity that although I looked at the enlarged painting for a long time yesterday and thought, “How horrible, how painful” I looked at it again this morning and thought, “It really doesn’t look so bad.” Of course, we moderns have the entertainment media to thank for that. We have all been desensitized by such television programs as NCIS and CSI: Miami and Law and Order SVU (for Special Victims Unit and which my wife keeps referring to as Law and Order SUV). Even though our culture now turns to blood and guts and gore and violence for relaxation, I think the version of the crucifixion presented in Mel Gibson’s The Passion is probably much more likely to resemble what actually happened than the stylized, almost antiseptic by comparison, portrayal in the Velásquez painting. --RWP, 4/22/2011]