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Across the Pastor’s Desk by Charles Teixeira

We don’t like to wait.

We’ve forgotten the value of waiting. We are used to having our packages arrive in two days on our doorstep, our food heated in microwaves on high and our favorite shows available anytime and anywhere. We are living in an on-demand age and while we may say that “patience is a virtue,” we’re living as if it’s overrated.

So, what do we do when we must wait? If you’re like me, the easiest answer is simply to complain about it. Tactfully, of course, but to complain nonetheless.

Waiting seems like an injustice against what seems to be an inalienable right — to get what we want when we want it.

Yet God purposefully crafted our stories with moments and seasons of waiting — not to punish us, but to teach us. Maybe we are meant to put aside our grumbling and learn from these in-between, inert moments.

Today is one of those days where we are waiting.

Holy Saturday is the great pause, when humanity waits with bated breath in the stillness and silence between Good Friday and Easter.

On one hand, we’ve experienced Good Friday. We’ve seen the extent to which God would go to show his great love for us — dying in our place so that we could live again in him.

But now, on Holy Saturday, we remember what it’s like to still wait for the resurrection.

Holy Saturday teaches us what it means to live waiting for the restoration of broken places in our lives. As we remember the stillness of Christ in the grave, the anticipation of resurrection becomes unbearable.

We cry out to God to resurrect our marriages and parenting, our purity and devotion, our friendships and neighborhoods, our studies and careers, our bodies and hearts.

Knowing that Christ will be raised, Holy Saturday gives us the courage to ask God to continue resurrecting the dead or dying parts of our world.

What part of your life feels unalive, fastened to the broken dynamics of the world we live in?

Draw near to God as you wait for him to keep doing what he does best: Resurrect.

Charles Teixeira is a pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Albert Lea.