The longest night

"I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night, but if you have been - if you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you - you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing is ever going to happen again. At any rate that was how it felt to these two." - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S.Lewis)

It is impossible to fully comprehend the joy of Easter Sunday without appreciating the despair of Good Friday. Much like my Christmas Eve comment, it is all too easy to race forward to Easter Sunday. Yet Christ's resurrection only makes sense in the light of his crucifixion. Good Friday is sombre and bleak. It is the ultimate breakdown of relationship between God and man. Its sorrow a long shadow of the grief which would ensue if it truly where the end and not just the pause for breath before a new beginning. In holy week we see a model of the whole of history. Man's rebellion and God's salvation. Millenia of struggle compressed into three short days.

Understanding the pause helps too. The long night and empty day between the Friday night and the Sunday morning. For in some ways we're still in that pause. Salvation has arrived - dawn is already breaking. But for those on earth it feels like night still lingers on...