“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” : Isaiah 53:3-5

Today is known as Holy Saturday, it is a day suspended between the anguish of Good Friday and the joy of Easter Sunday— yet it is also a day pregnant with meaning, often overlooked in our thoughts about the significance of Easter.

I think this is where Martin Luther, the catalyst of the Reformation can help us. Luther grappled throughout his ministry grappled with the paradox of the cross—the scandalous truth that God chose to reveal His power and love through weakness and suffering. In his theology, Luther emphasized the profound mystery of Christ’s crucifixion as the pinnacle of God’s plan for humanity, this is often called Luther’s theology of the Cross

Central to Luther’s thinking about the cross is the idea of paradoxical wisdom—a wisdom that confounds the wisdom of the world and our own experience of life. In the cross Luther said, we see God’s ultimate revelation of His love and mercy, expressed in the midst of human brokenness and sin. It is through the lens of the cross that we come to understand the depth of God’s grace—a grace that transcends our comprehension and defies our expectations.

Yet, Luther’s theology of the cross is not merely a bit of abstract theology; it helps us understand Christian and human experience of life, particularly in the tough times in life.

Luther said that the Cross critiqued our reliance on our own human experience to understand what is happening in the world and in our lives. Luther pointed out that on Holy Saturday, the disciples experienced fear and disappointment believing Jesus had been a failure and that God had abandoned them.

That was their experience, the reality was that the Cross was Jesus’ victory not defeat, and that far from being abandoned on Holy Saturday God was working behind the scenes to bring out the cosmic victory for them that is the resurrection.

We often have “Holy Saturday” times in our lives, where things happen that make us feel God has let us down, has abandoned us and is nowhere to be seen. Yet Luther reminds us that our conclusions based on our experience is no more a reliable source of truth about reality than the experience of the disappointed disciples on Holy Saturday.

Prayer:

Gracious God, on this Holy Saturday, we stand in awe of the mystery of your cross—a mystery that confounds our human understanding and challenges our deepest assumptions. Grant us the grace to embrace the paradox of your love revealed in weakness, and to find in the cross the true wisdom that leads to life eternal. In the name of Jesus Christ, who suffered and died for us, Amen.