Read Today’s Scripture
“This Night.”
This is it! Lent’s last day! Every step on every day that we have fasted and walked with Jesus to his Cross through Lent, ends here—Holy Saturday, inside the tomb with Jesus. What have you fasted from on this journey? In your fasting, did God reveal to you burdens that you no longer want to carry? Maybe it was a sin, a grief, a despair. Carry it no more! Lay it down now in the Tomb of Jesus, just like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, in today’s John reading, who laid their lives at the tomb of the one they loved. Because, as one ancient anthem puts it, which we will hear tonight at Easter Vigil,
This is the night
when Christ broke the prison-bars of death
and rose victorious from the underworld.
This is the night
of which it is written:
The night shall be as bright as day,
dazzling is the night for me, and full of gladness.
The sanctifying power of this night
dispels wickedness, washes faults away,
restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners.
Look, whether you like it or not, Christ is risen from the dead and breaks down the prison-bars of the tomb. The risen Jesus will storm out of this tomb like a mighty warrior. And he desires to take you out with him! But you can’t carry your burdens out. It needs to die in the tomb. So, what’s it going to be? Today, this night, do you want to die with your sins, or to leave the tomb and live with Christ?
Collect
O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of thy dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.