I don’t know what the Saturday after Good Friday is supposed to be called, or if it even has a name. I call it Sad Saturday. I am sure that those closest to Jesus during this very confusing weekend were not only sad, but also stunned. This isn’t how they thought it would go. They expected him to rise up and take over. They wanted him to govern. To overthrow the oppressors. To beat his chest and rattle a sword. They didn’t understand him at all, and when he died all their hopes died with him. A dark night of the soul, complete with profound collapse of meaning and an intense crisis of faith and identity.

Dark nights of the soul are places void of understanding. They are mostly silent. No prayers are made because no words will form. Tears and possibly groans are the only prayers. The mind is overwhelmed. The body exhausted. The emotions scrambled. Disorientation is the norm. Hence the name dark…there seems to be no light. Eyes are blind to see. The spirit is crushed. Usually there is a triggering event; a loss; a trauma; a season of dryness. A very tomb-like season. Closed in. Sadness and sorrow are constant companions. No hope. No light. Surrounded by death, or what feels like death.

I have been in an emotional tomb for several years now. I think it started when Louise (Bill’s mom) was diagnosed with brain cancer. Years of treatments and fighting the disease eventually took her. Then my aunt Betty, declined quickly, right as Mom was entering into full blown Frontotemporal Dementia. Ray was in the mix as well, battling cancer. More years of juggling. Betty died. Ray died. Mom died. Then Dad was suddenly gone, and Michael followed shortly after.

It is dark in this tomb. Surrounded by death. Trying to keep my eyes on the light that has faded away. This past year has been particularly difficult. Wanting to curl up into the fetal position and sleep for years, has been my Sad Saturday. I’ve been a bit lost. Some days deeply disoriented, other days simply drifting, untethered.

I tell myself it is a season. Many of us are in the season of saying goodbye to parents and loved ones, as the generation before us passes. I tell myself I am not alone in this. That Sunday is coming. Today is Resurrection Sunday. For Christians, it is the lynchpin of our faith. Jesus came out of that tomb.

I have been asked, “You really believe that?” I can only say yes. I cannot explain it articulately. I only know that he is real to me, sometimes more so than the world around me. He is not theology. He is not church. He is not religion. He is a person, who made himself real to me in the dark nights of my soul.

Today, we celebrate the stone rolling away. The light shining out of the tomb, not into it. The conquering of death includes both the blackness of the closed tomb and the dazzling light of the open one. I finally feel like the grief-stone has rolled away from the tomb of my emotional darkness. While grief of so much loss will always be with me, is not as heavy. It no longer blocks out all the light. I am able to breathe again. I no longer feel I am underwater breathing through a straw.

So, while we celebrate Jesus waking from the dead, I also celebrate that his death allows us to do the same. To come out of our dark places. To bear witness to the light that comes from within the hard spaces and illuminates the way for us to walk out of them. I can’t give you an eschatological explanation of how this works or the concrete hard facts. I can only testify that in my darkest nights, he has been there. Right beside me. I feel his presence and that atmosphere of peace is everything. No one can convince me that it isn’t real. That HE isn’t real. He came out of the tomb…because he loved me and wanted me to come out of my tomb, too. Thank God for that!

Happy Easter!