Jesus died on Friday afternoon. They took His body down from the cross, sobbing as they did so. They put His body in a tomb. What had just happened? Wasn't Jesus the Messiah, the One who was going to bring freedom and harmony to the world? Wasn't He going to save them? How could He be dead? Were they fools to have followed Him the past three years? Would they be next to die?
Saturday is the day Jesus lay dead in the tomb. The disciples did not know the future, they lived through the pain of Friday and the silence of Saturday. The fear must have been unbearable, the confusion and the pain. Maybe anger. I imagine they cried out to God with all of their being. And yet there was no answer.
If you've gone through a time of true and deep suffering in your life, you know how the disciples must have felt. You think you're within the will of God, following the plan He has for your life. And then in an instant, its all gone. And what do you do now?! You feel hopeless, angry, sad. There is physical pain as well as emotional. It's agony. And it doesn't seem to make any sense. And God is silent. Or so it seems.
We have to blessed understanding now of what it really meant for Christ to go to the cross and die. We know what Sunday will bring. But Jesus' first followers, did not. All they knew was that Jesus was dead. It seemed there were no answers to their questions, no response to their prayers.
Sometimes you live in the suffering of Friday, sometimes in the silence of Saturday.
But Sunday's coming.
Thank God for Sunday...cause Friday and Saturday wouldn't mean nearly as much without it!
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