Holy Saturday - When God is Silent

A Reflection by Iona Ledwidge

Growing into maturity – whether it’s in a romantic relationship, a child-parent relationship or in a relationship with God – always involves a steady process of recentring from our own priorities and preferences to those of the other. That’s why our centre of gravity shifts as we mature spiritually. We begin to pray that God would change our hearts and rewire our motivation. We long to become more like Jesus. We ask God to help us become more humble, more loving and more faithful.

It is in answer to these very prayers that God may decide to deny our requests and even withdraw a little from our lives. As long as it makes perfect sense to serve God and to live for Him, our faith can only mature so far. There’s nothing very selfless or sacrificial in obeying God as long as it remains in our best interests to do so – enjoying His love, receiving miraculous provision, hearing His voice clearly, experiencing His reality in worship, gaining stimulating insights from the Bible, knowing God’s comfort when we are hurting and so on. Until these things are removed from our lives and we are left to stand alone without any reason for continuing except steadfast loyalty, we cannot truly mature from an us-centred relationship with God to a truly Christ-centred one. It isn’t until the facts that once reinforced our beliefs are removed from our lives that we can truly ‘live by faith and not by sight’ (2 Cor. 5:7).

(The above is an extract from Pete Greig’s book ‘God on Mute’ – p246-247)

There may be times in our lives when we don’t feel God’s presence tangibly, when our prayers remain unanswered and we wonder if He really cares. Pete Grieg talks about how God may step back in order to help us mature, just as a father takes the stabilisers off his child’s bike to help them ride independently. When I first became a Christian, I experienced an incredible high and an injection of passion and exuberance for God. But the honeymoon period eventually wore off! A few years later, I was challenged to think more about what I could do for God rather than what He could do for me. I am no longer all take, take, take and am able to look around me to see what the needs of others are. As I’ve gone deeper with God, there have been times when He has withdrawn further into the shadows. These are the times when I’ve learnt what true faith looks like. Perhaps you have experienced seasons of loneliness, sickness, lack of provision, heartbreak and bereavement without much sense of God’s intervention?

The excerpt I have taken from ‘God on Mute’ is in a chapter entitled Holy Saturday. This is the day after Jesus died, a day of emptiness, bewilderment, anger, fear and overwhelming sorrow. This is the day when every question Jesus’ disciples asked remained unanswered. Pete Grieg talks about how we want to rush ahead to the resurrection when we talk about the Christian faith, and even more so when we live it out. But there may be times of darkness, emptiness and unanswered prayer in our lives. It doesn’t make God any less God – it is just a scary place to be in.

I remember a time when I was temping, jobless after applying for probably about 50 jobs over a period of 6 months. God had not yet answered my prayers for a job which I could enjoy and which used my talents. Perhaps you have had similar experiences where you felt led in one direction but it didn’t work out? Perhaps you feel God has let you down, or even that you have done something wrong? But here is a truth which I keep coming back to. It isn’t until the facts that once reinforced our beliefs are removed from our lives that we can truly ‘live by faith and not by sight’ (2 Cor. 5:7).

I love this following poem – it could have been written by one of Jesus’ disciples on Holy Saturday. It expresses something of the anger, the pain, the loneliness and desperation of that day, and of those agonising times in our lives when we are crying out to God in the emptiness.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H. Auden

16th Century writer St John of the Cross called the Holy Saturday times in our walk with God ‘the dark night of the soul.’ Mother Theresa wrote in her journal ‘[people] think that my faith, my hope and my love are overflowing and that my intimacy with God and union with His will fills my heart. If only they knew.’ It is reassuring to me that the great mothers and fathers of the faith experienced times of incredible pain and doubt. It allows me space to know that I too can be in pain and this is reconcilable with the God I know and love. No wonder then if ‘we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory’ (Romans 8:17), we experience such times of darkness in our walk with God.

Prayer:
Lord, help me to seek you when you are nowhere to be found. Help me to hold onto the truth of your love when the reality is I sometimes don’t feel loved. Help me to worship you when you are answering the prayers of others but none of mine. Lord, meet with me when I feel desperately alone and the cost of taking up my cross and following you seems too much to bear. Help me trust that you are the God that brings beauty for ashes and a garment of praise from a spirit of despair. For you are the God that rose from the grave and have power to bring me to life. Fill me with your resurrection life this Easter time I pray. Amen.