Now Our Lenten Work Is (Almost) Done (Holy Saturday)

Last updated on: April 18, 2020 at 10:19 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

Now Our Lenten Work Is (Almost) Done (Holy Saturday) 2020-04-18T10:19:38-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Easier times can lead to trivial longings, but at the end of this Lenten season our prayers have been improved. They gain a seriousness, a hopefulness, because the stakes are higher. On Holy Saturday there is a wonderful moment in the liturgy when we pray “now our Lenten work is done” and (sadly!) most years my first thought is “steak!” This year my first thought will be: “When will our Lenten journey away from our church home end? When will this pandemic recede?”

Our College and School are not built to be online. We are obeying our civil and religious authorities, because (to quote the liturgy!) “it is meet and right so to do.” Just as meat (!) is right to eat after Lent, fasting is forbidden, so the day will come when our pandemic work will be completed and we shall meet again!

We need not pretend this is fun or that what we are to “learn” is obvious to us. Why? Partly because God’s ways are not always manifest, even mysterious, but often because the immediate cause of our Lent is an error from some other human. Sometimes such suffering comes due to blunders of our leaders. They demand sacrifice that God did not require!* This is most common when a religious leader adds to the moral law extra burdens, some pet “moral”code of his own and pretends that code is morally binding on all.

There are even worse Lents caused by human error. The folly of fighting in an unjust war has taken the life of many a decent young man.

What of this?

We can accept the blunder as a blunder or the unjust act is an unjust act. We do not rejoice in folly or sin.

We do trust that the good God will bring justice to those people who reaped what they did not sow. If some spiritual Lent were ever given to us due to a mistake by government or church leaders, then the mistake is still a mistake. We could mourn the error, yet God will compensate and bring justice over time.

Even a false Lent will be counted as a true Lent in God’s good grace if we look to God for justice.

My Dad is a hearty octogenarian and if he is like my great-uncles, God may grant him many more years. When he meets the babies of our church (no great-grandchildren quite yet!), they are meeting someone born before World War II and he is looking at what will (in God’s grace) be a human that will see the twenty-second century! A human life is a Lenten journey and every human life, redeemed by Jesus, ends in Pascha. This Easter morning comes whether our life is long or very short. As my Dad put it when I was a boy, “When we die, our next waking thought is Jesus.”

This is beautifully true. Our Lenten exercises will be done, but not just done, made meaningful. Feasting will be required and one realization that will lead to joy at the party will be what all the fasting meant. We will get our “reward” for behavior that was, in fact, good for us. We have been given bitter medicine that healed our soul and Father God brings us rewards for taking our medicine!

God comes with super-abundant gifts. Why? He knew our pain, not just through His perfect knowledge, but through the God-man Jesus. The God-man was born, grew, lived, and died. Jesus experienced pain in His body. He lived a perfect life that healed the gap between what people should have been and what we are.

One man showed us what perfect justice is. Jesus received His reward, but like a good brother He shares with us from the infinite bounty He possesses.

Our Lenten work is done this year, a forerunner of the end of all suffering!

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