No, today isn't Saturday. (Well, unless you're reading this on a Saturday :p). And yes, we're past Easter 2021 now But the urge in my heart to write this has only gotten stronger, so, here we go.
---------------------------
This past Friday, I saw many reminders of, "It's Friday but Sunday is coming." with messages of hope and reminders that the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Savior was coming. And on Sunday, of course, I saw many messages of celebratory reminders of our risen Lord, the fulfillment of the Gospel! These days both held vital, good reminders for me, and I didn't pass over them lightly. Something about Saturday got me this year, though.
On Saturday, I woke up thinking of how the disciples might have felt the morning after - the morning after they watched their Teacher, Friend, Lord, Messiah get nailed to a cross and cry out his final breath, "It is finished." The ache their hearts must have felt as the numbing shock of Friday began turning into the gut punches and cutting pain of loss. The ringing in their ears with the finality of that cry.
Peter remembering his betrayal on Thursday, his despair and desperation for a miracle on Friday, trying to grapple with the sheer hopelessness that his life now seemed to be on Saturday.
Somewhere in the recesses of their minds, they must have remembered that Jesus tried to tell them His death wouldn't be the end, but our human brains can only handle so much. Some probably thought He was trying to tell them a miracle would happen and on Friday, up until the very last moment, they held their breaths, willing Him to come down off that cross in a triumphant show. Reality says death is the end. This is why Peter tried to stop Jesus from saying He would die, because if He didn't say it, it might not happen.
I've personally walked through the grief and pain of loss, and this is why I think Saturday must have been worse than Friday. On Friday, there was still a chance. On Saturday, Jesus was gone and reality settled into His vacancy.
So, why wait? Why did God wait? Why not resurrect the Son on Saturday morning?
There are theological reasons for this waiting - important ones - that I won't dive into right now. Because knowing with our minds the reason for this waiting, I think, often causes us to miss a little nugget buried in the waiting that we need to grasp with our hearts. The disciples felt utter despair.
They loved much and they lost much, and Saturday they were left to grapple with that.
So many circumstances give us so many reasons to give up, to despair, to let go of all hope. We are bombarded with realities that there is no way out, no way through, no reason to live, no one left to love or to love us, nothing to fight for. And why should we have any reason to hope?
We have a reason because of Saturday.
Saturday. The day when nothing made sense; the day the world was upside down; the day darkness laughed and it seemed like Satan had actually won; the day of questioning whether or not anything Jesus had taught them was worth hanging on to. That day. On Saturday. The promise of the Gospel still stood, even when the disciples couldn't understand it.
This - the Saturday it seemed God was silent - is reason for us to hope even on the darkest, deadest night.
