Saturday.
That hollow, grief-filled day, standing between the utter despair of Good Friday, and the salvation and joy-soaked Sunday that had not yet come.
Saturday – when they sat in stunned silence, tumbling over in their minds all that their friend and teacher…the one who claimed to be the Son of God…had taught them about who God is. The one who turned their world upside down, with teachings of love so vastly different than they had ever been taught before. Revolutionary love. Love that encompasses not only friends and family…but enemies. Love that requires a man lay down his own life. Sacrificial love.
Images of the grotesque, scandalous slaughter they had witnessed the night before, when their teacher had been mocked, beaten, spit upon, pierced and hung on the cross till he died….those images must have assaulted their minds on that silent Saturday. Why had the one whom they had watched heal the sick, cause the blind to see, still the storm, and multiply the loaves…and who had even raised the dead!…..why had he not also performed the miraculous and saved himself?
Why had he abandoned them?
This world has seen so many days wrapped in anguish…and we, as individuals, have had such days…but I can’t imagine much more hopelessness than what the disciples and followers of Jesus must have felt, in that Saturday Silence.
Grief…missing their friend…his laughter, his companionship, how he seemed to be able to see into their souls.
Confusion…had what Jesus taught them not been truth? Had they been duped?
And anger….maybe even anger.
At his killers.
At themselves, for not defending him.
At themselves, for denying they knew him.
And, maybe even anger at Jesus, himself.
They did not know, that Sunday was coming.
The disciples and followers of Jesus, do not have what we have today. We have God’s word that tells us that Jesus did not remain in that tomb. We have scripture that shouts to our often despairing hearts, that our only hope is found in our resurrected Savior – the one who sacrificed His life upon the cross to pay the price for our sins – a price that was required of us, but taken upon the beaten back of Jesus, as he hung on the cross and cried out to his Father “Forgive them; they do not know what they are doing!”
But Peter, John, Andrew…Jesus’ mother, and Mary Magdalene….Thomas…and even those who a week before had been crying “Hosanna!”…they did not have what we have.
The only thing they had, was the silence of Saturday.
In church and Christian circles, we don’t talk about that Saturday much.
We attend Good Friday services, observing communion and reflecting on the propitiation and sacrifice-wrapped cross. We repent and lament and give thanks for what was accomplished through the death of Jesus.
On Sunday (and, every Sunday) we gather with our church families and worship our risen Savior – we sing, loudly. We greet each other with exuberance – “He is risen! He is risen, indeed!”
But often, we do not take the time to observe…and remember…that Saturday in-between.
However, we have all been there.
We who know “how the story ends”…we, too, have Saturdays, in between despair and joy.
We have days-months-years when our lives are shattered, and there are no answers to our “Why’s?” Moments when the seemingly silence of God is so deafening that it snatches the breath from our lungs. Moments when we do not sense hope, even though we have scripture that the disciples did yet have, on their Saturday…..hope-soaked verses and chapters and psalms and commandments and stories that tell us who God is, and what He has done for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus – scripture that we can grasp with white-knuckled death grips as we search the horizon for a light in the darkness.
What do we do, in those moments?
We wait. In anguished silence, we wait.
And, God is there, even in that silence.
Why was there a Saturday, in between that so very awful Friday and that empty tomb Sunday? Jesus not only could have saved himself from the cross-death, but God could have resurrected him immediately. He could have walked right out of that tomb, the minute he was laid in it. Why put the friends and followers and disciples of Jesus through that agony? Why did God not roll that stone away, the very moment it closed? Why place a silent Saturday between destruction and resurrection?
I think it is because God gives us that room…that space…to wait. To lament. To sit in our grief. To weep….to cry out to Him from our pain. To wrestle with our own doubts and fears and anguish…and to take those to the feet of God, who we know is our only hope…even when we can’t sense that hope.
I think Saturday is there, to allow us to come to the knowledge that there is no suffering that we endure, that Jesus himself hasn’t endured.
And – that painful, silent Saturday, sweetens the thunderous, pounding joy of hope found on Sunday….when the two Mary’s found the tomb empty, and “…with fear and great joy, ran to tell his disciples.” (Matthew 28)
So Jesus Christ defeats our great enemy death not by proclaiming His invincibility over it but by submitting Himself to it.
If you can find this Jesus in a grave, if you can find Him in death, if you can find Him in hell, where can you not find Him? Where will He not turn up?
~ John Ortberg
