Somber Saturday in Tallahassee

Once again and far too often, we are following the story of another shooting, this one on the campus of Florida State University. The sickening irony is that just a few blocks away, the Republican controlled Legislature is acting on bills that turn back gun law changes that were made in the wake of the attack at Majorie Stoneman Douglas High School seven years ago.

I had planned to copy this passage from Surprised by Mary. It was written after the shooting at a Nashville elementary school in 2023. Yesterday I received an email from a colleague and friend in Tallahassee.

The shooter lives 2 doors down from us and we watched him grow up in our neighborhood.  Nice family.  So incredibly sad and unbelievable. Our neighborhood is still on lockdown. Prayers appreciated.

May the Christ who prayed for our forgiveness on the cross forgive us for our inability to prevent this kind of death and suffering.

“They rested on the Sabbath.” (Luke 23:56)

The Good Friday Tenebrae service ended. The gospel stories were read. The last candle was extinguished. The altar was stripped. The Christ candle was carried from the darkened sanctuary. There was a breathless moment in darkness before we walked out in somber silence. Darkness had fallen on the earth. Holy Saturday comes. And we wait. 

 I was working on this chapter when “breaking news” popped up on my screen. Another uniquely American assault rifle attack on a Nashville school resulted in the deaths of three children, three adults on the staff, and the shooter. Shortly after the news broke, I received a surprising email from a colleague who served on the staff at The Upper Room.  

Hey… I’m numb… the shooter was the child of my dear neighbors three doors away… A mass of unmarked police vehicles with blue lights descended on my street. Swat officers stormed Norma and Ron’s house, using a grenade to blow off the front door. I watched it all from my living room window before a police officer yelled at me to ‘get down’. I’m numb…. completely, utterly numb… Crime scene tape is wrapped around my mailbox to the end of the street. My next-door neighbor’s three boys attend the school and were there when it happened. I’m just numb…

Numb. That word must have described the women who came with Jesus from Galilee. They stood with Mary near the cross. They watched Jesus take his last breath. They saw his body laid in the tomb. They went to wherever they were staying in the city, numb with shock, speechless with grief too deep to express, aching with pain too overpowering to avoid. I’m sure they tried, as we all try, to make death manageable by telling the story again and again. .. 

The gospel says Mary went home with John. Wherever she was, I’m sure her friends were with her. I’ve seen the way faithful women stick together! 

I imagine Mary’s friends were like the powerful women in the movie Steel Magnolias. They stayed at the cemetery with M’Lynn after the burial of her daughter, Shelby, who died giving birth to a son. When the ever-naïve Annelle offered comfort with sentiments of simplistic piety, Ma-lynn said her mind told her she needed to move on, but she wished someone would tell that to her heart. She wept over the awesome and awful privilege of being there when her child was born and being there when her child died. With that, she lost control of her emotions. She stormed away from the grave as she shouted the question every sorrowing mother asks, “God, why?” 

Mary must have had an explosion of grief like that in the aftermath of her son’s burial. Let’s not make her out to be more pious than the psalmist or more faithful than Jesus. The psalmists never hesitate to name their deepest fear, guilt, anger, and grief. Jesus prayed with gut-wrenching honesty in Gethsemane when he pleaded with God to find some other way to fulfill his mission. But in their darkest hour, both Jesus and the psalmist trusted their life and their death into the steadfast love and unyielding faithfulness of God. And they waited. 

“I wait for God’s promise.” (Psalm 130:5)

We will not be fully prepared for the surprise we now know the women will discover on Sunday morning until we wait in stunned sorrow with them in Saturday’s stony silence. In the traditional service for Holy Saturday, we pray, “Grant that we may await with him the dawning of the third day and rise to newness of life.” Don’t miss that we wait “with him.” Jesus is with us in the tomb. He waits with us in the numbness of death for the resurrection to new life. And we wait in hope. 
(From Surprised by Mary: How the Christ Was Born Through Mary Can Be Born Again Through Us, Cascade Books, 2024, p. 72-75).

Waiting in hope,

Jim