Saturday (between Good Friday and Easter) and Our Big (un)News

Some theologian (maybe Jurgen Moltmann, I forget) said we live in Saturday. Our lives are all Saturday. After the crucifixion and death of Christ, yet before his coming back. Our lives are lived in the tension, the dialectic, of despair and hope. Ours is a theology of hope, that one day we will see Christ again. One day things will all be made new. One day this will all make sense. We know the end of the story, so we live in hope. Yet we don’t know exactly how it will happen, so we live in tension, we live with conflict. We live on Saturday, with ambiguity, with mystery. And that’s uncomfortable!

In Biblical Greek there is a construction “men…de…” which means, “on the one hand, on the other hand…” It’s used a lot in Hebrews and other NT books to juxtapose something in the Old Testament with Christ, with the rhythm of refrain implying Christ is better, Christ is better, Christ is better…

So on the one hand (in our lives), we found out when Carlos came home last night, that we didn’t get the Olmstead Foundation scholarship we applied for to move overseas for him to get an advanced degree. I was crushed, devastated, shocked, sad, angry, you name it, I was it last night. I had put all my chips in, I was 100% expecting to move to CA for language training and then to go abroad. It made perfect sense for our lives (in my mind)- full of adventure and excitement…

Yet on the other hand… God must have something better, more perfect, in mind for us. And Carlos is home! All that really matters is that we’re together. Joys are doubled, sorrows are halved, no matter where we go. Maybe we’ll still go abroad (there are a couple of jobs in Suriname, Brazil and Australia that we know about so far); or maybe for this season we should stay Stateside, in FL, TX or CA? I don’t know. I live in Saturday. I live in mystery and yet I hope.