I can’t sit still for long. I’m better than I used to be, which isn’t saying a lot – and probably as much to do with being older as any great advance in my capacity for stillness. I like being busy, doing lots of different things, cramming my days full. Achieving. Or so I think.
This is not just my nature – there’s a lot of nurture too. My school culture rewarded competing, and I was only too happy to sign up to that. Then just as I started to ease up, parenthood kicks in and gives us all something akin to attention deficit disorder. When you’ve got young children you never get to focus on anything for very long – and after a while, you find you’ve lost the knack, if only to stop yourself falling asleep whenever you get a free moment.
I must admit (with some embarrassment) that, ironically, being a vicar doesn’t help much with leading a more contemplative life. Long days, unexpected pastoral crises, paper-thin boundary between home and work, and the awkward fact that many other people’s sabbath is the most intense part of my week. Plus the internal and external pressure of being seen to make the most of your calling: the old Protestants used to call it ‘redeeming the time,’ thereby even creating a theology out of what is basically workaholism. I don’t get paid to sit in a chair, do I? Or so the whisper in my ear goes…
So, what struck me today as I reflected on our passage are not the much more obvious stories in the text: not Joseph giving up his tomb for the crucified convict. Nor the religious leaders desperately seeking to shore up their own lies with the threat of (what they presented as) an even bigger one. Nor even the comical image of Pilate setting up a security detail to thwart the purposes of the Lord Almighty –as if a few spears and a big stone was going to make a jot of difference!
It’s the tiny detail I’d never noticed before – the women ‘sitting there’ (v61). Note that this is not Sunday morning, or indeed earlier on Friday when the crowds surrounded the cross. This is Friday evening – the crowds went hours ago, the disciples have long since fled, even Joseph (aided by Nicodemus, as John tells us) has finished his funereal duties and wandered off. And still they sit. Just being close to their departed friend. Watching, waiting, grieving, loving.
Why is the greatest event of all history, the resurrection of Jesus, revealed first to Mary and Mary? There are lots of answers to that, but the simplest one of all is this: because they were there. They were the last to leave and the first to come back. They spent time with their Lord, even in death. And I find that both immensely inspiring and immensely challenging at the same.
On Holy Saturday it’s hard to keep sitting. If we’re lucky, we may have social events to enjoy. We’ll certainly have plans to complete for Easter Sunday or Bank Holiday Monday, food to buy, eggs to hide, and so on, and so on. We’ve done the sitting on Friday, we’ll do the singing on Sunday. But in between….
This is a thought more to myself than to anyone reading – but nonetheless a worthwhile one. Take a few moments if you can today to sit with Mary and Mary, to contemplate the tomb, to remember again what it cost Jesus before the joy of tomorrow. Tomorrow always comes – hallelujah! – but there’s gold in the waiting, too.
Lord Jesus, help me to sit today, even for a few moments. To watch and wait with your friends, that I, with them, might experience tomorrow with fresh eyes. Amen.