Year B Holy Saturday 2024 It's The Hope That Kills You

Year B Holy Saturday 2024. 30 March 2024

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“It Is The Hope That Kills You”

Collect: O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Matthew 27:57-66

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, "Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, `After three days I will rise again.' Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people,`He has been raised from the dead,' and the last deception would be worse than the first." Pilate said to them, "You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can." So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.

This is the in-between time. When you wrestle with reality. Mixed into the stages of grief somewhere between denial and anger on one side, and depression and acceptance on the other, sits bargaining. In my mind's eye I always seem to see the disciples hidden away sitting there making deals with God.

I hear that in Thomas’ voice when we see him in next Sunday’s readings, when Thomas is bargaining. “I will believe it if I see the nail prints in his hands, and put my hand in his side.” That is a bargain. He is not saying it is impossible. He is saying that it would take extreme  measures to get him there.

We are in the midst of Holy Week, but in our country one could argue that more are paying attention to March Madness with all of its highs and lows. In any sports season, there is hope and grief. Some teams have more one than the other. But that is what we watch sports for, these encapsulations of the life, the highs, the lows, the crapshoot as to how it will all end.

In our office, we are not huge in talking about sports, most of us not having the time to follow any particular teams. But we did follow Ted Lasso, a show about Premiere League Football, aka Soccer, in the UK. In that show, very true to the Football culture, they kept repeating a phrase that seemed to hit home.

It’s the Hope that will kill you.

It is the Hope that’ll kill you. So cynical. So very British. While philosophically not there, I do see how someone could succumb to the idea behind it. If you have low expectations one is easily pleased and easily surprised positively. If you are hopeful by nature, think Linus sitting and waiting for the Great Pumpkin, then the shattering hope is almost more painful than the event of loss itself. The death of hope is the painful part. We grieve what we believe the future would be.

It happens when we have a break-up or a divorce. It happens when our team, as mentioned, is defeated.  It happens when the reality does not live up to the hype or the hope.

The disciples had full faith in Jesus to be the Messiah, and the Messiah was there to establish a restored Israel on the world stage? Right? He was there to kick out the Romans and live up to the promises made to King David. Right?

But Jesus died. Not just that, he was viciously squashed by the powers that be, to silence him and all his followers once and for all! They posted guards on his tomb so that all the prophecies he had made about resurrection could be proven they never happened. 

If “It’s the Hope that kills ya!”, then the world and its master is out to give us hope in things that are not worthy, or to strip us of the hope we should have in the right things. Jesus gave us hope then and gives us hope now. The difference between the disciples and now is that we have the rest of the story. We have a reason to have Hope. It no longer is the Hope that will kill us. It is the Hope that gives us life and breath.

Grace is filled with Hope. Hope that things can change. Hope that nobody is irredeemable. Hope that there is something awaiting us beyond the horizon of death. All the fears of the dark nights of existence can be washed away in Jesus. 

That  is, IF we have Hope. It may kill us if it does not ring true. But I would rather be hopeful and disappointed than hopeless and living my life in that despair.

This swirl of emotions is what the disciples were experiencing between Friday and Sunday. And so we sit. We wait. We might even dare Hope despite every rational reason not to do so.  

As we pause between tragedy and glory, ponder how you live your life. In Hope? In Cynicism? Somewhere else? The Christian character is bound up in being Hope-filled, and may God deliver us from being jaded, especially in a time so readily going there. Amen