I have to admit… Christmas is everyone’s favorite holiday (mine too), but something about the Lenten and Easter season feels deeper, more profound as I get older. Yet what do you do with Holy Saturday, that single dark day in between despair and hope? Last year, I did my best to capture the tiniest glimpse of what it might have been like for those left behind who didn’t yet know for sure how the story would end…
She used to say she loved
those TV movies about Jesus,
but hated the crucifixion scene
even though it was toned down
in the grains of 1970s film,
palatable to the eyes of those
eating dinner in front of
a flickering screen.
This is us, now, knowing
how it all ends, knowing
in three days the lungs of God
would reinflate.
Knowing the ending, could I
ever comprehend the blackness,
ever imagine the darkest
Saturday in history?
A King’s body shrouded in spices
and linen lay withering
behind stone,
The budding bloom of salvation,
crushed
careless
trod by
His creation.
Oh my God
today the sun scatters clouds
the sun that once turned away
at your final earthly breath
as the lion lay shorn and still.
May I never forget
the darkest day of history,
spring stopped, waiting,
pressing her face
at the tomb’s door.
Jen Rose Yokel is a poet, freelance writer, and spiritual director. Her words have appeared at She Reads Truth, CCM Magazine, and other publications, and she released her first poetry collection Ruins & Kingdoms in 2015. Originally from Central Florida, she now makes her home in Fall River, Massachusetts with her husband Chris, where you can find her enjoying used bookstores and good coffee.
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