Mystic Musings: Holy Saturday
I said to God, “Let me love you.” And He replied, “Which part?”
“All of you, all of you,” I said.
This time God said, “There is a hideous blemish on my body, though it is such an infinitesimal part of my Being—could you kiss that if it were revealed?”
“I will try, Lord, I will try.”
And then God said, “That blemish is all the hatred and cruelty in this world.”
St. Thomas Aquinas, a 13th century Catholic theologian
Joseph Campbell being interviewed by Bill Moyers
I remember watching The Power of Mythseries over three decades ago—the interview of famed mythologist, Joseph Campbell, by Bill Moyers. I loved that series and led studies of it in three of the churches I served over the years. But there was one section that I stumbled over every time. Bill Moyers was asking Campbell about the place of suffering and sacrifice in the world’s great myths. In the midst of that conversation he talked about violent armed conflict between nations and then went on to describe the “terrible beauty of war.” I remember watching his eyes and his facial expression. Rather than registering disgust over violent conflict, his face broadcast a sort of sobered delight—the same kind of look one might have watching a lion take down a deer on a Safari—sobered by the violence and delighted by the opportunity to witness nature in action.
Today is Holy Saturday one day after Good Friday and hours before Easter Sunday. We tend to split the world into good and bad and hope for the day when the good will reign forever and the bad will be eradicated from the face of the earth. But we need to remember that the story of Holy Week is not a story where hatred and cruelty and pain and suffering is finally conquered.
Photo by Gurth Bramall @gurthb
We need to remember that Jesus didn’t bomb evil back into the Stone Ages where it would never reveal its face again. We need to remember that Jesus’ approach was never to get the upper hand. We need to remember that Jesus was fully aware that “hatred and cruelty” still permeated people’s hearts. We need to remember that Jesus’ approach was not to eradicate hatred and cruelty by force but to neutralize its power by placing his body in the crosshairs of hatred. “You can kill my body,” he was saying, “but you can’t make me hate you.”
It’s not that Good Friday is bad and Easter is good. It’s that this how the drama of life unfolds. This is how the character of God reveals itself. Lions attack deer. Hatred and cruelty is part of our reality. How we react to it is also part of our reality. We can be violent. We can also suffer at the hands of violence. That is the drama we signed up for. As Campbell would say, “Even in this there is a terrible beauty to all of it.”
Sit quietly. Breathe deeply. Ponder these questions:
Look at your own heart. Where does hatred come from? Can you find any hints of it at all within yourself?
A good movie almost always has a protagonist (“good guy”) and an antagonist (“bad guy”)? Are you comfortable playing either part in your life?
Will there ever be a time when humanity is not in conflict? If so, can you learn to love the struggle itself? Can you kiss the blemish on God’s body?