Our kitchen was in full-swing this morning as we prepared pickles and pound cake to celebrate this holy weekend. Because this is a time to celebrate. We have almost made it through the long forty days as we have followed Jesus’ life and ministry. We have wondered what it meant for this teacher to be revealed as Messiah and King. We have grieved as we witnessed in anguish his unjust death.
It might not seem like pound cake and pickles would evoke the reminder of how death steals loved ones from us, but for me, this pound cake reminds me of my dad. He used to claim, “I’m not really a good cook, but I can make a pound cake.” I remember walking into the kitchen and seeing the scale on the kitchen counter and my dad standing at the mixer. His pound cake may have been the only time that 1970s burnt orange kitchen scale was used, but it stayed in the cabinet with the mixing bowls for whenever he needed it. As I altered between adding and eggs and flour this morning, it seemed unfair and unjust that my dad wouldn’t get to toast a piece with butter and eat it.
As the smell of dill filled the air while the cucumbers cured on the counter, it didn’t seem right that our Easter celebration would have something my dad loved so much and couldn’t have. Death reminds us that it is the ordinary things, sharing a meal around the table, learning to cook family recipes, and being together that are the true miracles. Perhaps that is why Jesus made sure eating together was the last thing he did with his followers. Maybe that’s why he looked at them saying, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
The silence of Holy Saturday is unnerving. We try to still our minds and bodies and sit in the finality of Jesus’ death while desperately longing for the certainty of tomorrow morning. As we watch and wait, we remember our own grief…the memories of our loved ones who have already met death, perhaps unjustly, but certainly too soon seem so much closer today.
We can’t skip ahead in this story. We must wait here in the grief and uncertainty. We must watch and wait with fear and trembling. We must stay here just a little bit longer and remember we are ash and to ash we shall return.
Make the pound cake and pickles even if it’s with tears streaming down and eat with those you love because how we spend our time really does matter for no of us knows how much we have left.