Finding My Way on Skye

Sermon preached on Holy Saturday 2026, at St George’s church, Paris.

How are we doing?

Holy Week can be emotionally gruelling.  We have watched as the events in Jerusalem moved towards crisis.  We have opened our hearts to receive the gift of the Eucharist, the transforming gift of Christ’s own self to us.  But those same hearts have also been broken by treachery, and we have wept for our own share in the betrayal.  We have allowed our imaginations, at least to some extent, to draw us into grief as we have watched the brutal torture of our Beloved.

After being put through the emotional mangle that is Good Friday, we arrive at Saturday like a landed fish: wrung out, quiet, waiting.  That, at least, is how I experience the Great Sabbath.

But, of course, we do not literally stand on the day after the Crucifixion.  Historically speaking, that event happened two millennia ago.  If we believe that the Cross and Resurrection were a divine intervention in history then they have a before and an after.  We live in the aftermath, when the Kingdom is rolling out.  When the time of grace granted to sinners before the final judgement is ticking away, and the world moves daily towards the coming of heaven to earth.

Our liturgy is circular in character: it leads us through the cycles of the year, makes provision for the events that punctuate the cycle of our lives.  This is well and good, since we mortal creatures are not made capable of God’s friendship in a single shivering fit – but little by little, day-by-day, and our worship and prayer work on us day-by-day.  But there is also a trap in this circular character.  It can become pagan, like animist religions which are all about aligning ourselves to the great cycles of nature.  It can detach us from the great story of our salvation.

Biblical time, in contrast, is not cyclical: it places us on a timeline from beginning towards end.  God has acted, in the historical events of the first Easter, and we now live in the aftermath.

I find these reflections on the nature of time helpful in understanding how Easter Saturday feels.  In one sense, our thoughts and feelings are mainly influenced by the liturgical cycle – that is to say, by our yearly remembrance of the Passion.  But in another sense, we believe that God’s Kingdom has been inaugurated and we long to see its final triumph.  We long to see wars ended and to see God deal with the evil people who cause them.  We long to see injustice end, and to see reconciliation and harmony between people.

The Kingdom of God is, as the saying goes, “already but not yet”.

If today you long for Resurrection, and for the fullness of the Kingdom, then treasure that feeling.  That desire is the seed of hope.  Hope is one of the greatest of Christian virtues, and it is our banner for this day.  The world needs hope very badly at the moment, and it needs to hear it from us.  Our hope in God, and in the trustworthiness of God’s character.  Hope that rests not mainly on an assessment of the future, but on a proclamation of the saving work that is already done.  Hope in Jesus’ Cross, and in the Resurrection. 

Treasure your hope, as you wait out this day.

Amen.