In the Shadow of the Cross, a Holy Saturday meditation

It was hard to be poor in my middle school. I know, it's almost tautological. It's hard to be poor anywhere to the extent that poor is essentially synonymous with hard. My middle school wasn't wealthy in its demographics. Many of the kids I knew ate last night's sparse leftovers for breakfast, or came to school lucky to have simply eaten last night at all. Many saw their parents only in transit from one job to another. Many bore the brunt of their parent's frustrations and sense of powerlessness. Many watched TVs or read magazines that extolled a philosophy of human worth built on wealth, a media machine whispering sour nothings in their ears, bitter tastes of shame, of lacking personhood.
Yes, it was hard to be poor in my middle school. But it was even harder to be the poorest. This burden was carried by Sarah (not her real name). Her outfits were from small time charity organizations, their style and often smell indicated decades of use. She was skinny, far too skinny. Her skin had the color of pale ash and heavy cloud. Sarah was a symbol of sorts. In a community of the poor she embodied poverty with bony arms and torn shirts. In a fellowship of shame her shy eyes and mumbled voice wore it like a mask. Sarah was the shadow, the echo, the sacrificial lamb of her classmates' self loathing.
There were these big rectangular drainage basins outside the school on either side of the gym. Think of them as concrete bathtubs. Three sides were built into the walls of the school, one faced outward with a metal rail surrounding it. The average twelve year old could stand up in it with the top of the concrete wall at about eye level. The first rung of the rail was a few inches above that.
I'm not sure how he got Sarah down into the basin. Maybe Jeremy (not his real name) asked her to jump down and get something he had accidentally dropped. She would be eager to please with the sad hope of the outcast. Sarah would have grinned as she hopped in. Then again, he might have just pushed her. I pray to God that she was spared the cruelty of illusory happiness.
Jeremy must have given a signal. This was planned; this was looked forward to. Within seconds, fifteen, maybe twenty kids latched on to the railing. There wasn't any room for Sarah to get back up and they kicked at her arms when she tried. They yelled and laughed. Nobody was insulting her, they were screaming from the sheer joy of what they were doing. No, they didn't call her names, they spat on her. She was huddled in a corner of the basin, being covered by spit, by phlegm. It was at least a few minutes before the teachers discovered what was happening.
To this day, I remember her eyes when she was hauled up. It wasn't a look. Looks reached outward. Her eyes seemed to cave into infinity, sucked at by an unseen singularity.
On this holy Saturday, we shiver in the shadow of the cross. We dwell consciously in the liminal time, the great cosmic uncertainty. Could hate, oppression and de-humanization eclipse God? Is the cross not only the final logical conclusion of sin, but also the sum total of our identity? Could we hurt more than God can love? Am I what the crucifiers tell me I am, or am I the beloved child of God?

I shivered in the shadow of the cross on that day, more than today or last night at the Good Friday service.

I don't always get atonement. It's ironic that I used to live in a town named after St. Anselm. Substitution creeps me out and ransom gives me the willies. Something inside of me breaks down at the foot of the cross, turning my big words to blather and slobber. I know something holy is happening between God and humanity, but I can't talk about it directly anymore than I can look directly at the sun. But, this isn't a time of explanation; it's a time of telling-reliving the story of God being nailed to the cross of a Palestinian peasant.
The God of the Universe
The God of Creation
The God of the spat upon
The God of the rejected
The God of the poor
The God of the oppressed
The God of the mourners
The God of all who cry in the dead of night
The God of the concrete basin
THE GOD WHO IS LOVE

…..the God who is being….who stands-loves-suffers-with…………. the crucified