They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
John 19:40-42
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
“God’s Grandeur”
On this day of deepest darkness, when the last lights off the black west have shuttered out (for two days now), on this day when our Lord lay in the earth, even on this day, God is present: the Holy Spirit broods like a mother hen over our fallen world, wings shining softly in the inky blackness that precedes Eternal Day.
The lectionary passages for Holy Saturday:
Job 14:1-14 or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24
Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16
I Peter 4:1-8
Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42
