The Scent of Water
Holy Saturday
Reflection By Robbin Brent
For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grow old in the earth, and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant.
- Job 14:7-9
Holy Saturday finds us in liminal space, waiting and unknowing. Jesus lies in the tomb and all of creation holds its breath. The pain of the crucifixion remains fresh, and we have seen our hopes crucified, our dreams shattered, and we don’t yet know how the story ends.
Henry Vaughan wrote, “There is in God (some say) a deep, but dazzling darkness.” We are held in the darkness of grief, waiting for a dawn that feels impossibly distant. Yet even now, hidden in the darkness, something dazzles—a light already present and returning, though we cannot see it. The Book of Job speaks of hope that comes “at the scent of water,” the promise of new life even from what appears dead. As we keep vigil, we watch for hints—whispers of grace barely perceptible in the air.
Just as a seed gestates underground, just as new life is knit together in hidden depths, God’s love continues its healing work beneath the surface. I lived in this kind of Holy Saturday darkness for seven years after my divorce—not knowing if the season for committed love would come again. The longing was there, hidden even from myself, tucked away where it couldn’t be disappointed. I couldn’t see what convergences might be taking shape: the opportunity, availability, maturation, healing from past pain and suffering, desire, history, geography. All of the infinite conditions that would need to come together. I could only wait, and trust, and keep my heart open.
I wonder now if those longings and prayers—spoken and unspoken—were like the scent of water that reaches the tree, joining with God’s longings for me even when I thought the window had closed. This is Holy Saturday: living in the not-knowing, carrying both the ache and the hope together.
By every visible sign, the tree in Job has been cut down, finished. Our hopes for what we long for no longer seem alive. Jesus lay dead in the tomb. Yet beneath what we could see, the ancient rhythm continued—the mystery of life and death and Love’s triumph over death. God is already at work in the unseen places, tending longings we didn’t even know we carry, weaving together healing we can’t imagine, and bringing into being what we could not have imagined on our own. This is the anguish and the hope of Holy Saturday: we don’t know how our story ends, but we trust the One who does.
We can be like the tree that sends out new shoots at the merest hint of moisture. As we wait in the silence of the tomb, we can trust in the hidden work of God’s love. We can watch for the “scent of water” in our lives—the signs of love, hope, and resurrection that are always present, even in pain and loss.
Making It Personal: Where have you experienced the “scent of water,” the unexpected grace that brings hope in times of despair? What are the “Holy Saturday” places in your own life—the places of uncertainty, grief, or longing? Can you trust that even in the darkness, God is gathering the seemingly disparate elements of your life into wholeness and new life?