In youth sports they have a day when the sideline crowd of Moms and Dads must be quiet. No shouts of encouragement (Kick the ball!). No shouts of disparagement (Joey why didn’t you just kick it already?).
It’s called Silent Saturday. But as I found out, today is another kind of Silent Saturday, and it’s tied to Easter weekend.
I slowly became aware of this when my wife, Catherine, associate pastor at First Presbyterian Birmingham, didn’t respond to my ‘Good Morning’ as I walked by on the way to the coffee pot.
I didn’t think much of it, she must be absorbed in her Easter preparations, I thought.
I got my coffee and my laptop and began my web-hopping, checking out news, AL.com and Greg Garrison’s Easter coverage, my blog, and music videos.
Wow. No way!
I found this video that has more than 350 million page views. What? That’s a page view for everyone in the United States and then some.
The video was by a group called Disturbed and it was a cover of the old Simon and Garfunkel classic, ‘Sound of Silence.’ I watched the video, very dramatic, even melodramatic. I can see how this is popular.
I went to show Catherine because I knew she loved the song. She used the music in a presentation at her church in Athens, Ga., in her youth and always cranked it up when it came on the radio. (Ha, funny, cranked up Sound of Silence.)
By this time I had forgotten that Catherine didn’t say good morning back at me. I came walking in with my laptop and said I wanted her to see a video. She made hand gestures. Eventually she spoke very softly and said she was coming out of her silence, and that this was Silent Saturday.
I Googled and found this from popular Christian writer Max Lucado discussing Easter weekend:
Jesus is silent on Saturday. The women have anointed his body and placed it in Joseph’s tomb. The cadaver of Christ is as mute as the stone which guards it. He spoke much on Friday. He will liberate the slaves of death on Sunday. But on Saturday, Jesus is silent.
Whoa. My brain gets a kickstart with back-up help from the coffee: I told Catherine the video was ‘Sound of Silence,’ a cover version. Her face conveyed a mixture of confusion and amazement.
How did you know? She thought I had pulled the video because of the day, which I really knew little to nothing about.
Anyway, it’s a heck of a video, and my only hint is that this version is befitting of a band called ‘Disturbed.’ Catherine and most pastors I know after six weeks of Lenten preparation and Holy Week might also be described as disturbed. But that’s another story.
Watch the video below (Looks like you may have to click through to play video but it’s well worth it):
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