Black Saturday: God is Dead . . .

and He descended into hell. How easily we seem to avoid the horror, the darkness, the emptiness, the absence of this waiting. . .how can we claim to celebrate the narrative of redemption when we excise the story of its unknowing, of its utter despair.

Point of inspiration - A beautiful SMS message from Chris Fry, as follows. . .

"God is dead. The old is passing away. Let us wait with hope, long without succour, and weep without comfort. Discard both memory and desire. Maybe yet we can by truly surprised."


Point of inspiration - For a parable written by Pete Rollins pass your mouse over the title above. At the ikon site, go to the Reflections section. The appropriate piece is called Holy Saturday.


Point of inspiration - From the source of so much inspiration this past winter, Buechner, comes the following lines, which I used for ikon's "Eloi, Eloi" service at Greenbelt 04.

"The absence of God is not just an idea to conjure with, an emptiness for the preacher to try and furnish, like a house, with chair and sofa, heat and light, to make it livable. The absence of God is just that which is not livable. . .

Jesus shares with us the darkness of what it is to be without God as well as showing forth the glory of what it is to be with God. He speaks about it, and perhaps that is much of why, although we have not followed him very well these past two thousand years or so, we have never quite been able to stop listening to him. We listen almost in spite of ourselves when he tells us the ship is sinking with all hands aboard. All of you labour and are heavy laden, he says.
It is an appalling thing to tell us when we are trying so hard to pretend that it is not so . . .

The world hides God from us, or we hide ourselves from God, or for reasons of his own God hides himself from us, but however you acocunt for it, he is often more conspicuous by his absence than his presence, and his absence is much of what we labour under and are heavy laden by. Just as sacramental theology speaks of a doctrine of the Real Presence, maybe it should also speak of a doctrine of the the Real Absence, because absence can be sacramental too, a door left open, a chamber of the heart kept ready and waiting. " *

We are the waiting unknown . . .

x.

* Taken from Frederick Buechner's "Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairytale". My continued appreciation to Liz and Brett for adding this to our collection. I would now trade the entire wall of books for this one text. Profoundly inspiring, it has shaken my entire being on its axis. BUY IT HERE.