Holy Saturday 2026

 

Meditation for the Saturday….

Easter is neither a matter of faith or of belief. Much more than that. It is an offer of experience that you can accept. The preaching and teaching of the gospel has been so outdated and so irrelevant for so long! Just look to Jesus in the real presence and power of the Comforter!

The post Easter appearances of Jesus say a little about the life beyond; please read, as an adventure, the sections in Luke 24:13ff; 36ff and John 20:19ff; 26ff and 21:1ff; and 23:43 and finally John 14:2ff.

These are very different from traditional talking and thinking about what they were and are; i.e. the continued use of heaven as up and hell as down and RIP whenever someone leaves. There are clear contradictions. The version that says when Jesus died spirits were seen rising as the curtain in the temple was torn. Rising up from? Down, I guess.  Just as Saul called the spirit of Samuel and he came up? From? But Ecclesiastes 12 says clearly the spirit returns to God who gave it. The flesh returns to dust and ashes.  And Jesus says to the criminal on his side, this day you will be with me in paradise. How to know such an invite? You must adventure in the spirit, in the here and now.

And perhaps the biggest clue to such need is in the fear that most of us have when it comes to death and dying.

And what happens in the Luke and John stories about Jesus? They pose challenging questions that are not really taken up, since they delve into what seems to be science fiction! The categories are

1.Jesus appears suddenly and without warning, to the disciples; one time, even behind closed doors in a walled building.

2.Jesus disappears just as suddenly, except for the final mention in John where, outside of Jerusalem, he blesses the disciples and seems to move away, recede, and then disappear; this being seen in an upward direction; as recorded, it would appear that he moved upwards and was soon gone from sight.

3.he eats fish with them.

4. He is a physical being; Thomas, who doubted his appearance, reaches out and touches and feels the scars on him.

5. Lastly, when he appears, recognition is not a given; on 2 occasions, he walks and talks and is not recognized until he sits to eat with them and breaks bread with them – and then vanishes from their sight as on the road to Emmaus; and at the Sea of Tiberius where he bids them cast down and they draw up a huge amount of fish and then suddenly become aware/realize it is Jesus.

What conclusions can we draw about what has happened to the Jesus they knew? They have seen that he forgives and heals; now he appears and disappears, moves through thin air, passes through solid walls, and is neither ghost nor spirit.

There is no precedent in the Bible for this. The Old Testament speaks of Hell as Sheol, as in the ‘underworld’; so the Psalmist says ‘in Sheol who can praise thee?’ A little reminiscent of the Greek notion of Hades as the underworld, where one has to cross the river Styx to get into the underworld.

In 1 Samuel Ch 28:3ff  there is this neat story about Saul and the medium of Endor; wanting to know the outcome of impending battle, Saul finds a medium, though by law their existence and practice is forbidden; he asks to speak to Samuel and so the medium ‘brings up’ Samuel, who does not give him any good news. But Samuel does not speak through the Medium. Samuel appears, and the Hebrew word here for Samuel is used only this once in the Bible’s Hebrew; It means ‘ghost.’ I read the Hebrew on that, not according to some source!

Next, the notion of death is that the body is made from dust and at death returns to the dust it was made from; but the soul, the spirit life that God has breathed into the clay, returns to God; read the Genesis creation account; read Ecclesiastes 12.

But in the tradition, there is a one stop option about heaven i.e. you go to heaven. Wherever it is, whatever it is. Next to nothing is known. You hope. Or you’re going to hell. That was pretty much how the gospel was traditionally preached and still is. Be saved, or risk going to hell. Not much of an invitation. The other side of it was the ‘Be saved, and your sins are forgiven’ so you get to go to heaven. I am not sure whether that escapes coercion at all. Kind of a weird self-serving invite. Does not mesh with the ‘ he who loses his life will find it’

Check out the wording – most recently repeated by a so called evangelical to a genuine criminal with loads of material power…

“The only way to heaven is by the shed blood of Jesus Christ; if you accept that by faith, and invite him to come into your heart, you are heaven bound. I promise you; if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.”

These are not words to be taken literally or lightly. They require a soul commitment; not a verbal intellectual phrasing; the heart is not capable of believing anything; the mind will believe as we choose to believe for the time that we decide such belief should last! It is too easy, and in today’s world, makes a mockery of the Almighty. Not for nothing did Jesus say many are called but few are chosen. Again, the gate is narrow.

No doubt someone back in the day said something similar to Caiaphas and Pilate. Don’t feel badly, just do this and you’ll be all set. Ha! I do not want to spoil this weekend’s celebration for my readers et al, but you must come to terms with the evil of this world and how it dresses itself up for the Ball. So I set you this question – who said this, and to whom was it said? Go find out.

Jesus says to the one on his right, since he has been asked to remember him in the kingdom, in Luke 23:43 -  and ‘this day you will be with me in paradise.’ Sounds a little like the garden of Eden. Could be. We don’t know.

Again in John 14:2ff, Jesus tells us that in my Father’s house there are many rooms, and I go to prepare a place for you….read the section, it is very thought provoking; he also says I will come and take you there…what does that mean? Ask the Spirit!

Useful also to read Ecclesiastes 12:6ff and ask what is the silver cord, the golden bowl, the pitcher broken at the fountain, the wheel broken at the cistern; and then the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Not to be taken lightly.

If you get the Kingdom right, you will not fear death, as I do not. Both your own intuition and the Holy Spirit will tell you what you need to know. Read MD Sherwin Nuland’s ‘How We Die’ to get a sense of what physical death means. It may help.  Let it come when it will. I have made a weird discovery for myself as I have grown old. The Lord might allow us to die when we will, and even how we will, not counting the accidental causality of life ie we get hit crossing the street!  The 'how' has a lot to do with taking good care of your body. If you do that well, and you get your spirit connection right, then you get to decide the when of it. You will know for yourself. The body is a limited time frame, and it will run out. It will be time for the ‘you’ that is ‘you’ to leave. Some might believe otherwise and that is fine with me. I decided a long time ago that ‘faith’ and ‘belief are limited concepts, and opted for achievable experience instead. And I have lived such a way since then. So as I was called unwillingly to ‘ministry’ I am called to write JL. And I will do so. We leave for a better place, only because we have done such a bad job of stewardship on all the Lord has given us. So we must traverse inter-dimensionality at death. Either into the Father’s house or some other place of our own making. 

Remember, for all of our philosophy, technology, and so-called wealth achievements – we have no idea what the soul really is and where the soul resides in our being; and the same applies to that which we call our ‘consciousness’. Both psychology and psychiatry like to think of this as relating to the human brain, but the limits are obvious and the Qs have not been answered.

Jesus' post Resurrection appearances, like so much of the Bible, start with the invitation to have faith and believe; or believe and have faith. But history is history. Believe in what you can touch with your hands! No teachers, no miracle workers, no faith healers, none of the usual mumbo jumbo. Find out for yourself. The ‘how’ of it is simple. Do good and grow. Not appearance but action. Each good action = one step forward into the being and power of the Kingdom. And the hidden + factor that will always remain secret is the ability to control a thing, to make a thing change as you will (remember Jesus on moving the mountain to the sea?) That option is open to all. Follow Jesus. Move mountains, whatever that might constitute in your life. Every blessing in Jesus’ precious name and person, dearly beloved! Until tomorrow. G.