Holy Saturday: A Mediating Boundary

More often than not a boundary is a mark of division, this and not that. It is a barrier which keeps separate, a protection of what belongs here and not there, to me and not to you. 

A boundary is an enclosure, a perimeter defining a thing as it is itself and protected from ambiguity and admixture. In Christ the definition of boundary is revolutionized and becomes altogether something different. The thin space, the -non-place- of the boundary becomes not an isolating point but a mediating point. The boundary is not dissolved in the mediation, it remains because the two sides do not lose their distinction and yet they are united in the boundary.

The ancients spoke of thin spaces where heaven and earth came together. The flatness of an icon depicts the same idea: the subject of the icon is the thin space, the mystical boundary between the created and luminous.

Christ Himself is this mediation between human and divine just as Holy Saturday is the mediating boundary between the Cross and Resurrection. We fail when we choose either the Cross or Resurrection, we must live in the mediating space embracing both fully. Holy Saturday helps us to do this if we take it on its own terms, if we do not rush to the end of the story but linger there allowing the full weight of the cross to have its effect. Even though we have heard the story many times we must take it as it comes living in the present moment and allow it to unfold for us not rushing to the end. 

Even now in this world we live in the mediating boundary of Holy Saturday. Christ is Risen and we with Him and yet not. Christ is risen, and yet He still bears the marks of His wounds. Death is dead and yet we all still die. We are set free and yet He ever lives to make intercession for us- precisely because we are still in the age of our cross making up what is lacking in His sufferings. Our life in this world is lived in the mediating boundary of Holy Saturday, at once pinned up on a cross and also shot through with glory.