Silent Watchers

Silent Watchers and the Hope to Come Faith Reflection for Holy Saturday

Saturday before Easter can feel like a pause that stretches too long. The sorrow of Good Friday still lingers, and the joy of resurrection hasn't broken through just yet. It's a day suspended in silence— between death and life, despair and hope. In the Garden of Gethsemane, there are olive trees that have stood for over a thousand years. Some scientists and scholars believe it’s possible these very trees were present when Jesus knelt and prayed the night before his crucifixion.

They are known as the “silent watchers.” They didn’t run or sleep or scatter. They simply stood—rooted, present, silent. 

Waiting is never easy. Silence can be unsettling. We long for answers, for movement, for Easter’s trumpet to sound and shatter the stillness. But the waiting 

is part of the story. It is in the silence that our hearts lean in. It is in the pause that faith grows. And just like the olive tree—able to live forever through the replanting of its branches— life is already at work beneath the surface. Through Jesus, the Branch of Jesse, we are grafted into a new story, a new hope, a new creation. Even in the silence of Holy Saturday, resurrection is already stirring. God is already working. New life is already pushing its way through the cracks. So today, if you feel stuck in the silence, hold fast. The story is not over. The olive trees remind us: they watched once before, and they are still watching.  Resurrection is coming. Renewal is coming. Eternal life is breaking in.

Wait in the silence. Watch with hope.