Holy Saturday: A Comedian's Take

The Importance of Pause & Silence (Things That Matter #8)

If you’re a Christian, I have a question for you: did you know that, in Christian circles (and on the Liturgical Calendar) today is called “Holy Saturday”? If not, there are likely a number of reasons, but one may be because most churches skip right over it. They bounce from the sadness of Good Friday (which I wrote about HERE yesterday) to the sugar rush of Easter Sunday like they’re on a spiritual trampoline. Jesus died. Jesus rose. Done! Yaaaay!

But wait…what about that whole day in between? What about…Saturday? Well, it’s a day where NOTHING happens and EVERYTHING happens. It’s a day that, to me anyway, feels like a comedian pausing mid-joke to take a sip of water, stare into the lights, and then say…nothing. The comedian just looks at the audience. And the audience? They’re just sitting there, wondering if they’re supposed to laugh or call for help. That’s Holy Saturday! Hang with me.

Holy Saturday is supposed to be a day of silence. And if you’re a comedian, you should be very acquainted with silence. Or wait, is that just me? The silent space is that helpful nothing/everything space between the setup and the punchline. It’s that tiny little beat where everyone in the audience leans in together…waiting. It’s where a joke often lives or dies. And trust me, I’ve buried a few jokes in their respective tombs in that space and they were never resurrected.

Here’s the thing about that sorta liminal space, if you will: you go too fast and the punchline feels rushed. It’s a situation where your brain and mouth both knew it was funny, but your timing didn’t cooperate. On the flip side, if you go too slow, people might start checking their phones or zone out. BUT, if you get the beat right, if you lean into that pause, that silence correctly, you can expect an explosion on the other side. People will laugh not just because it was funny, but because the silence was broken. It’s like a pressure valve hissing open, a water spigot erupting. That’s the power of silence when you know what’s coming next. Holy Saturday is the day where the first disciples sat in that silence, waiting for it to be broken.

Years ago, in preparation for a couple academic conferences, I spent about a year tracing silence in the Gospel of Mark. I don’t know what kind of person does that, but apparently, this guy. I read the whole thing many times in Greek looking for where people spoke and where they didn’t, where specific terms indicated silence and noise. I looked at the peaks where Jesus answered and valleys where he refused. It’s amazing how many of the most powerful moments in the narrative are when things are dead quiet. At his baptism, at his transfiguration, in the trial, at the cross. In 20+ years of giving conference papers, that was literally the only time where I had an audience member come up to me and tell me they started weeping during the presentation. Not because it was so bad (to my surprise!), but because the realization was so powerful.

Silence doesn’t mean absence. Sometimes it means weight. And sometimes it means wait. Mark ends his story, in fact, with women running away afraid leaving us to wait. Nobody tells the disciples. Nobody explains anything. There’s no grand resurrection party, no angels doing choreography. Just fear and silence. Some people say that’s a weird place to end. I think it’s perfect. That’s EXACTLY! where you end if you’re setting up the greatest misdirect in history. Mark gives the setup, makes us wait, and then the tomb is opened like the curtain at a comedy club.

So, it’s sad to me that many Christians only know Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It’s like they only like their Jesus bleeding or shining, just not waiting. They can’t handle the wait. Like Peter and the other disciples, it makes them doze off, perhaps. I know: Holy Saturday doesn’t sell well, at least it hasn’t in Evangelicalism. It doesn’t have songs or greeting cards. It’s the day of nothing. But if you’ve ever waited for the laughter, you know that nothing is never really nothing. As I said above, it’s also everything. That space is full. Full of nerves, hope, suspense, grief, anticipation, doubt, breath, and fear.

Scripture and Christian tradition actually teach that Jesus descended to the underworld on Holy Saturday. While everyone up here thought he was doing nothing, he was doing something. What though? He was preaching a message of victory to the faithful who had trusted God and waited centuries for the Messiah to finally show up. Down there, the silence wasn’t really silence at all. It was the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews having a party. Imagine Jesus preaching release and victory and David, in his undignified way, dancing again, doing a cartwheel, maybe The Floss. There’s Moses handing out snacks, maybe some manna sweets for old time’s sake. Or, Abraham yelling, “Told y’all!” Noah going for the wine but Shem, Ham, and Japheth telling him, “Dad, remember last time? How ‘bout we not again, ok?!”

So yeah, it felt quiet up here. But down there, victory was proclaimed. While we held our breath up here, the captives were catching their breath down there. While we stared at a sealed tomb, they stared Jesus in the eyes. Ok, I can imagine like this all day. It’s fun. It’s lifegiving. But I don’t wanna go too far. I don’t know all the details.

I do know that Holy Saturday reminds me why I love both Scripture and stand-up. The timing has to be just right. AND…you have to trust the silence. You have to believe that even when nothing seems to be happening, in that moment, something is. Or maybe, just maybe, EVERYTHING is! And when the silence finally breaks, when the punch lands, just like the stone rolls away, you realize the silence wasn’t a mistake or a problem. It was that all-important moment before everything changed. Holy Saturday matters because it teaches us how to sit in the silence, how to trust the beat, and how to wait for what comes next. I’ll talk about that tomorrow. Until then, you’ll have to wait.