#HolyWeek includes Saturday

It is Tuesday of #HolyWeek and I'm feeling fairly hoppy (get that rabbit reference/joke?).

After a fourth visit to the vet yesterday that included an X-Ray and double steroids (she's now been eliminated from consideration for the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame), she's rather frisky for a 15-year-old.

I still don't have an idea where I will be living or doing ministry come July, or even if I will be (no guarantee), but that's all in the future.

What is in the now is the idea that God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son.

Can't get that little phrase out of my head this morning. He loved. He gave. His Son.

What a concept. It would be like I wanted to fix the local book store's business by sending my child to  be shot to death outside of it so it would get notoriety and publicity and people would start buying books again. Nah. Didn't think that would work either.

But for God, it did. For us, it did. He loved. He gave. His Son.

What a concept. It would be like the most wonderfully tragic idea of your life, completed, finished, done. It would be as if we gave away the thing most important, most loved in our life. Willingly. Lovingly. Painfully.

See, #HolyWeek works for us because we see Sunday coming. But I wonder if we forget Monday through Saturday, especially Saturday.

I was reading a story on the Religion News wire this morning, a Q&A with writer/professor at George Fox Evangelical Seminary, A.J. Swoboda, who said this of the end of the week experience:

"Holy Saturday -- that awkward day of questions, doubt, and uncertainty -- has been photoshopped out of some Christian calendars. But so much of faith is holy uncertainty. My favorite preachers refuse to iron everything out. When given the chance, they leave the wrinkles, a few kinks, a bump her or there in the road so that I would have to iron out, flatten out, and drive over the road of truth myself. The Japanese theologian Koyume once wrote that Americans love the cross as long as it's conveniently given to us in the size of a lunch pale and is equipped with an easy-grip handle. I guess I don't like easy-grip, convenient preaching nor am I inclined toward easy-grip, convenient love toward God. Holy Saturday gives me a context for the difficulty of faith."

#HolyWeek is not for the faint-hearted. It is not for the Dovekeepers of this world. It is not for the easy-bakes.

It is for those who would take the body down from the cross and place it in a smelly grave. It is for those who would go through the pain not around it. It is for those who God so loved.