If there is any day of the church year that best describes where we live as Christians in this world, it is today, Holy Saturday. For we live in the in-between. We live between death and resurrection.
On Good Friday, Jesus declared, "It is finished." The victory was won. Salvation had been fully accomplished. But no one could see it. That victory wasn't revealed until the third day. Only on Easter was the triumph of the cross made known.
You have been baptized into Christ's death. You share in His victory over sin and Satan and the grave. But you can't see it yet. Darkness and disease and death still surround you. Everything looks unchanged by the cross. And yet, having been baptized into Christ's death, you know by faith that you also share in His resurrection, that you have His new and everlasting life. You live on the verge of Easter, on the edge of the resurrection with Christ. This is the time of salvation's now but not yet. Holy Saturday is where you live every day.
And so tonight the Lord reminds us where we have come from and where we are going. This is a night of hope. The Living Word brings light into the darkness of death. This is the night of the exodus, where we pass over from death to life. We walk with Christ across the Red Sea of baptism in which our enemies are drowned and we become His holy people. This is the night of the flood, where the old order of evil and death is destroyed, and dwelling in the ark of the Church, we are brought by Christ into a new creation. This is the night of the fiery furnace, where the Son of God goes into the place of death to save and protect His faithful people from the flames of hell, and they come out with Him unsinged and unharmed. This is the night of the living Redeemer, who gives us the sure confidence that though our skin is destroyed, yet in our flesh we shall see God in the resurrection when Christ comes again.
Therefore, give ear now to these holy narratives of Scripture. For they teach us of Christ, and they show us our salvation in Him.