{"id":3157,"date":"2021-03-28T19:43:35","date_gmt":"2021-03-28T19:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.northcentral.edu\/blog\/?p=3157"},"modified":"2021-03-28T22:12:39","modified_gmt":"2021-03-28T22:12:39","slug":"a-week-of-holy-waiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northcentral.edu\/blog\/a-week-of-holy-waiting\/","title":{"rendered":"A week of holy waiting"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JP O\u2019Connor, Ph.D.<\/em><\/p>\n

The following post is dedicated to Audelia Garcia\u2014a beautiful and beloved soul (May 21, 1958\u00ad\u2013February 2, 2021) <\/em><\/p>\n

It was 2 o\u2019clock in the morning. The sleepy-eyed doctor entered our hospital room to check if the baby had made any progress. Our soon-to-be-born son was stubbornly holed-up inside a warm uterus with no signs of coming out. \u201cWe need to do an emergency C-section,\u201d I remember the doctor apathetically stating\u2014his flat affect in no way matching our own anxieties, fears, and growing expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we have another hour please?\u201d This plea was our third attempt to buy time with an otherwise exhausted OB nearing the end of his 24-hour shift. We had been nervously, and for my spouse, quite painfully, waiting in a stuffy hospital room for twenty-one hours for our first-born child to enter the world. By medical standards, he wasn\u2019t even close.<\/p>\n

Waiting for a child to be born can be a wonderful and frightening experience. No two experiences are the same. Some are happy and some are sad. All involve waiting.<\/p>\n

There are also less joyous forms of waiting. Our family received news this year that a beloved relative was put on a ventilator. An unholy illness took hold of a holy body. We waited for updates; we hoped and prayed for good news each day. There were ups and downs as doctors worked night and day to identify the problem and restore a life we loved. Our hearts yearned right out of our chests, but we eventually received the news that left them broken.<\/p>\n

Jesus died on a Friday. According to the Gospel of Mark, the few that remained to the bitter end of what would have been an exhausting and brutal spectacle were women.<\/p>\n

There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem..<\/em> (Mark 15:40-41<\/a>; trans. NRSV).<\/p>\n

These faithful women, Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Salome \u201chad been followers of Jesus.\u201d Mark tells us that these are not bandwagon followers; they are OG followers. These women cared for Jesus since Galilee. There are also not a few women present, but \u201cmany.\u201d I often wonder what the names of the many women were who stood there to witness this brutal and gut-wrenching affair. Having \u201ccared for him,\u201d they likely knew Jesus\u2019s face and frame without blood, dirt, and holes. The one they loved, the one they cared for since Galilee, and the one they believed to be the son of God, had died. Taken with despair, they hypnotically follow his body to the grave:<\/p>\n

\u201cThen [Joseph] rolled a stone in front of the entrance.\u00a0Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where Jesus\u2019 body was laid\u201d (<\/em>Mark 15:46b-47<\/a>; trans. NLT).<\/em><\/p>\n

Mary Magdalene and Mary saw the place where he was laid. As eager readers, some of whom have well-loved Bibles thumbed through over the years, we tend to turn the page as quickly as we can. We want the waiting to stop and the medicinal joy of the resurrection to kick in immediately<\/em>. But while we know the end of the story, these women did not. They waited. They stood still and stared at a giant stone that sealed away the one they followed from Galilee. How could such a life end in this way? Why did he not overthrow the powers that sought to kill him?<\/p>\n

The Gospel of Mark invites us to wait along with Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Salome. We are to wonder and to grieve along with them. If we are honest, attentive readers of the Gospel, we also must ask at the end of Mark 15, is the man from Galilee the son of God? Will he rise again? Is what he said true? The story requires us to pause and wait for the answer. We cannot fast forward to Sunday morning. The weight and grief of Friday lingers on well into Saturday.<\/p>\n

Many have experienced the weight of waiting. Especially amid an enduring pandemic, many have known the type of waiting accompanied with grief and sadness this Easter season. As much as Easter welcomes celebration, we must not overlook the despair and uncertainty felt by the first followers of Jesus. We ought to wait with the full range of emotion that accompanies a lack of knowing what will happen next despite what was promised.<\/p>\n

Our son finally came. In a matter of minutes, the doctor informed us that my spouse\u2019s progress had taken a quantum leap. After three gritty hours, my son slowly poked open one of his little eyes to view the world. Our Sunday finally came.<\/p>\n

But not every story ends this way. Some of us are still waiting with birth pains for this chapter to end. Waiting for our children to return to school. Waiting for vaccines to be distributed. Waiting to visit grandparents safely again.<\/p>\n

Even God waits. Good Friday tells us that the God of the universe waited three days before raising Jesus from the dead. Holy week reminds us that waiting is both an ordinary and holy endeavor along with every fear, worry, or ounce of hope that it brings. Whenever or wherever you wait, for whomever you wait, remember that you commune with God in this sacred act. In whatever way you choose to express it, an intentional, emotion-filled pause can be a sacred one. Reflecting on the meaning and significance of Holy Saturday, Dr. Yolanda Pierce<\/a> writes,<\/p>\n

But we often forget about Holy Saturday. Holy Saturday is perhaps the most important day of this sacred week because it is the day we must sit with death and grief as integral parts of our faith. Holy Saturday is the silence of a period that straddles death and life; it is the silence of work done and yet unfinished. The crucifixion has taken place, but the resurrection is still an impossible dream. Holy Saturday is the place between mourning and rejoicing; it is a time in which death has not yet been defeated, and victory cannot yet be proclaimed.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

May we join with Mary Magdalene, Mary, Salome, and many other women to pause at the sealed tomb. May we breathe-in and then out again in our awe-struck wonder or grief. May God meet us as we wait exactly where we are in our ordinary, holy places.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Yolanda Pierce, In My Grandmother\u2019s House: Black Women, Faith, and the Stories We Inherit <\/em>(Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2021), 185.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"JPJP O’Connor, Ph.D<\/a>., is Assistant Professor of New Testament at North Central University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JP O\u2019Connor, Ph.D. The following post is dedicated to Audelia Garcia\u2014a beautiful and beloved soul (May 21, 1958\u00ad\u2013February 2, 2021) It was 2 o\u2019clock in the morning. The sleepy-eyed doctor entered our hospital room to check if the baby had made any progress. Our soon-to-be-born son was stubbornly holed-up inside a warm uterus with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":3171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,44,31,1],"tags":[108,109],"class_list":["post-3157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-church-leadership","category-devotionals","category-pastoral","category-uncategorized","tag-easter","tag-palm-sunday"],"yoast_head":"\nA week of holy waiting - Table Salt | NCU Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As we anticipate the Easter celebration of Christ's resurrection, Dr. J.P. 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