"Rooted" - A Holy Saturday Reflection from Rev. Erik Free

Scripture: Job 14:1-14

We humans tend to be pain-averse as a general rule. This tendency extends to all manner of discomfort, from physical to mental and spiritual. Even as we sometimes acknowledge that much of our personal growth stems from times of adversity and pain, we would just as soon not experience it. We would more often choose the naiveté of comfort over the wisdom born of adversity and pain. So, maybe it is a good thing that so much of our experiences of adversity in this life seem unavoidable, or at least disconnected, from our direct actions or choices. Some bad things just happen, and we have no choice but to deal with and confront them, to live through them.

The book of Job wrestles with this human reality. Job is a righteous man yet suffers great tragedy. His friends, uncomfortable with his fate, try to make sense of it, to rationalize it. Job rejects their misplaced accusations and ultimately challenges God with what he feels is the injustice of his situation. Through this interaction, he has the freedom to rail away at God, to be rebuked and humbled even as he is comforted. He grows in wisdom. Through his experience of grief, he is transformed. Throughout the experience, Job remains rooted in his faith. His belief in God may waver, but he keeps talking, keeps praying. Our own experiences of grief and loss are not so different.

We would like to avoid these adverse experiences, if possible, hence the sentiment I often run into as a Pastor during Lent that we should just skip ahead to the celebratory spirit of Easter. I have often found myself answering the question, “Why?” applied to Lent and Holy Week. Many of us would be quite happy to jump from Palm Sunday to Easter and skip all the messiness in between. Yet, it is in the messiness that we find our strength, and it is in the adversity and pain of that Holy Week that we remember that we grow in wisdom.

In the text for this Holy Saturday, the day so many Christians find themselves hiding Easter eggs for the annual Easter egg hunt rather than reflecting on Christ’s sacrificial death, we see Job comparing the life of the tree to that of the human being. He proposes that the tree has a rootedness that offers it newness of life even as it faces death; a newness of life triggered by the presence of water. He contrasts this with a less hopeful view of human life that simply ends with death, a mortal being laid low never to rise again until the heavens are no more. Here, I hope you will forgive me for proposing that Job’s wisdom was shortsighted. For we who find our hope in Christ, can we not see a kinship with the admirable trees of Job’s comparison. Just as the tree is rooted in the ground, ensuring its life continues as long as the roots remain and life-giving water is present, are we not similarly rooted in this One whom we follow, even unto death; this One who offers us living water.

Even as we remember and mourn that Jesus died and was buried, we are called to hope in his model of rootedness in God, our Creator, the one who called him back to life. This Holy Saturday, let us remember that we are more like the trees Job spoke of than he knew. In times of great adversity and pain, even as we feel cut down, diminished, seemingly defeated; we remain rooted in the source of life and the giver of living water to sustain us. Like Christ who goes before us, we will rise again to new life.

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Rev. Erik Free, a DSF/George Fox Evangelical Seminary graduate (M.Div./2012), serves as the pastor of Keizer Christian Church in Keizer, OR. He has enjoyed serving the wider church regionally, generally, and overseas as well. He is an avid outdoorsperson and seldom passes up a chance to tinker with anything that goes "vroom.”