The earliest Biblical Gospel, Mark, says nothing about Saturday of Holy Week. There are some other references elsewhere about a mythological type of spiritual journey by Jesus into hell and releasing of the saint’s sprits, but nothing historical is mentioned anywhere. Given that, I think I will celebrate today by spending time thinking about how it must have felt to mourn Jesus’ death. In modern times, we don’t think about his death without also knowing about the resurrection story so we don’t really experience grief for our crucified Lord. We may watch a reenactment of the cross and feel sorrow for his pain, but we don’t really grasp that on Saturday of Holy Week Jesus was dead. There must have been a great deal of initial grief.

The stages of Grief:

Stage 1: Denial – Maybe this didn’t really happen or maybe Jesus will be brought back to life and return to reclaim his kingdom.

Stage 2: Anger – Saturday of Holy Week is a great day to get pissed off at the empire for what they did. How about some ceremonial cursing? (oops…it’s the Sabbath). Maybe since our traditional teaching about Jesus caused us to skip this important step it can explain why we now passively sit back and let the empire continue to flourish.

Stage 3: Bargaining – What if I repent and promise not to sin ever again? Maybe that will bring him back.

Stage 4: Depression – There is no hope because the Empire always seems to win and it feels like we will always be peasants in an unjust society. Maybe the fight for God’s kingdom on earth isn’t worth the cost. Maybe there is no hope for this life and the only hope that is left for us is a chance for justice in a life after death. Maybe we should abandon everything Jesus taught us about this life since we are doomed anyway.

Stage 5: Acceptance – I think that the death of Jesus contains an important lesson for me and has helped to solidify the birth of a whole new way to live in neighborhood with God and others. In a very important way, the death of Jesus was necessary to show us to what great lengths we must go in order to bring about his wonderful vision. Maybe Jesus’ death was really a victory? Some people might say that God intended for him to die all along.

I wonder if the very natural process of grief has impacted the telling of this story and our subsequent theology.

Jesus, forgive me for trivializing the injustice that killed you. Thank you for going to such great lengths to bring about the justice that I now enjoy. Help me to keep opposing the empire and working to extend your vision to more and more people.