Sensing Lent 40: Linen

I can't resist a linen shirt. 

Linen is made from flax and differs from cotton in texture and origin, being the only European based plant plant used in fabric making. 

In summer it absorbs body heat and in winter it retains body heat making a perfect micro climate for skin. It has a neutral pH balance and is hypo allergenic. All this in many ways makes it the cloth of choice..

Though Christ was dead, it seems to have been a fitting material in which to wrap his body on the Friday night after he was taken down from the cross. Tradition has come up with shrouds that have purported to be the shroud in which his body was wrapped - the Turin shroud is probably the most famous, being a piece of linen measuring 14 foot by 3, bearing the mysterious negative image of a crucified man. It is the most sacred religious relic in the world today, and the most tested, studied and scientifically analysed. 

The expensive quality of the Turin linen is consistent with the account in Matthew's gospel that the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea came to Pilate requesting the body of Jesus and laid it in his own tomb, hewn into the rock. The marks on the shroud figure are consistent with the injuries inflicted upon Jesus by his scourging and crucifixion, with the lashes visible, the nail wounds in wrists not palms, bruised knees from falling, a spear mark in the side of the torso, and no broken bones.

There's a reverence to the wrapping of Jesus' body in fine linen. It was evening. It was over, apparently. No words were said, perhaps. The actions said all. In a world, and even a church, in which words are everything, it's perhaps better to utter few on Holy Saturday. I was tempted at theological College to get into an argument about how one should mark 'Holy Saturday', then I just thought, do you know what - I'll say nothing.

For me, there are no words. Only the tender laying of a dead body inside a linen shroud. And silence. Until...

Lent for Extroverts 40: 'Holy' confusing Saturday

The Mourning of Jesus, Giotto di Bondone

I am on a steep liturgical learning curve. A wacky but, I suspect, deeply committed Christian friend of mine from a different culture had a 'word from God' that the Almighty was presently calling people into the Anglican church from different denominational backgrounds (to stir it up? I'm not sure..) Well I fit the bill. As far as I can remember we never attached any liturgical significance to the day in between Good Friday and Easter Day as I was growing up in a non conformist church. But there are those, and I suppose I'm nearly one of them, who call the day in between 'Holy Saturday'.

I slightly fear the sacralising of the every day. Doesn't it go against the spirit of the Incarnation? I resist the extremes of a trend which I worry could lead to the 'holy dusters' of the very blessed dusted vestry being the focus of a special church service each year, or the holy tea lights being lit on 'holy tea light day'. But I'm being facetious.

I think I can be content with 'Holy Saturday', and in my present liturgical incarnation, there is no liturgy offered, no midnight service of watching and waiting, no bonfire to light the paschal candle while we wait for the Easter sunrise. I did witness all that stuff once and my first impression was a) why are the priests dressed like the Klu Klux Klan? and b) wasn't it just like the scene I imagine in the courtyard when Peter sits by the fire the night Jesus is tormented by the Roman Guard, and the girl says 'Surely you are a Galilean also?' and Peter denies it. In other words, bonfires on Easter Eve can be liturgically very confusing for the uninitiated. 

Then there's the theological conundrum. What was Jesus doing all that time? The 'Harrowing of Hell' is one theory - that Christ descended into Hell and brought out the imprisoned spirits there. There's a contested couple of verses in 1 Peter 3 about it. But does that mean they shouldn't have gone there in the first place? Or were they paying off their sin Purgatory-style and were now ready? Is The Harrowing of Hell a bit too Universalist? Just because someone painted it in the Middle Ages it doesn't make it biblical. Or did he only go to the righteous, to proclaim what they already knew? Or was he just reposing quietly in the tomb, waiting for his moment? We assume that if the women went before dawn then Jesus must have risen before that, which makes it very early indeed Sunday morning.

I do like the idea that the church has a quiet day every year; a day to recover from the intensity of Good Friday and prepare for the joy of Ester Day. I worry that it could become an excuse for a day off though, when I could be drinking deeply from some liturgical well somewhere.

No doubt my liturgical pot will simmer away gently over the next few years. God is a patient cook. I'll do my best to recover from the Klu Klux Klan bonfire experience and ponder the theology of the credal assertion 'He descended into Hell'. Maybe I'll conclude that as the New Testament is pretty silent on the matter, we are not to know what Jesus got up to between the Friday and the Sunday. And maybe one day I'll 'get' Holy Saturday.

Meanwhile, Lent is almost over and this blog series has come to an end. Happy (nearly) Easter.