Holy Week Reflections: A Day of Letting Go

Saturday April 3 2021

The Rev Roddy Hamilton says that Holy Saturday is a day for thinking about the possibilities when we have let go of the past

Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. (John 19:41-42)

Perhaps this is a day of letting go. It is a liminal place, a between place, neither one thing or the other. Love has died, and we have to realise that. Love has died. There is no spark left, no burning ember, no word still waiting to be whispered, no magic teardrop to fall on some cold skin that will resurrect it. Love is dead.

And when love is dead, you break. We are want to keep holding on to something, but there is nothing left. All is gone. Everything is broken. There is no past now. And in such a place, we let go people, securities, things through which we identify ourselves, and then wonder, what will rise now we have let go? What have we made possible, what new thing is ready, because we have un-clung from the past?

Prayer:

In this space of unknowing,
Uncomfortable and painful as it is:
This space between death and life,
May we turn from looking back,
And dare ourselves
To seek the place
Where the dawn will spill into tomorrow,
And will it,
And long for it,
To cast its fresh light
On this uncluttered space,
Now empty,
And ready for a new wonder.

The Rev Roddy Hamilton is minister of New Kirkpatrick Parish Church, Bearsden. His series of reflections concludes tomorrow

Palm Sunday: Did Anyone Know?
Monday: Beyond Earthly Things
Tuesday: Jesus is From Everywhere
Wednesday: 'One of You Will Betray Me'
Thursday: Unsettling and Disruptive
Friday: Love, Silenced

Subscribe to Life and Work in print or digital