Saturday

 

 

"Between Jesus' burial on Friday and His resurrection on Sunday, there was Saturday... That Saturday must have been a day of crushing disappointment. It was a time when promises had been made but we're not yet fulfilled. Jesus had said He would come back. He had promised that if the temple of His body were torn down, it would be rebuilt. But He hasn't risen yet. All day Saturday Jesus' spirit was in heaven with His Father and with the thief on the cross. But for His disciples, Saturday was filled with nothing but loss. Jesus' body lay dead, decaying and cold. On Saturday, the rock in front of the tomb embodied the death of all their dreams and Jesus' promise of resurrection seemed absurd. Sunday was coming, but it wasn't there yet." 

-Levi Lusko, Through the Eyes of a Lion (page 85).

If you're anything like me, Satuday's are your favorite day. A day where you have no obligations. A day of rest (and homework). A day that doesn't seem to last long enough. However, we seldom think about Saturday as the day where the disciples took a crushing blow. The day where they waited for Jesus to fulfill His promise in His teachings. A day of confusion, and mourning. To them it felt like the longest Saturday they had ever endured.

Their Saturday consisted of waiting. 

 

I always giggle at this term "waiting" because in 2016 we rarely need to wait for anything, and often when we do our patience runs thin. If you have a question, Google it. If you want food immediately, go to McDonalds. If you want to get somewhere quickly, drive. However, the disciples couldn't just Google, "Is Jesus going to rise from the dead tomorrow? Was He really the Son of God?" No! They had to wait.

 

I'm reading a book right now titled A Million Little Ways by Emily P. Freeman, and in the book she says, "God does things a little differently. He said, 'Let there be light.' But then He waited a full day until He spoke again. And on the last day, He rested. He built waiting into creation. From the incarnation to the resurrection, devine creativity begins and ends with waiting." Wow. God could have made all of creation with simply saying, "Let there be light and all of creation." But He built waiting into creation. Just like God could have created the whole earth in one day, He could have had Jesus die and be raised back to life in the same hour. But He chose to wait 3 days to fulfill scripture. Though Saturday may seem long, cling onto the fact that Sunday is coming...

SUNDAY

The best day in all of history. The day Jesus conquered death, defeated the grave and stole the keys from hell. The day He fulfilled scripture just as it said He would in the Old Testament. The day the stone was rolled away and the empty grave was clear and salvation came into the world.

I love that after Saturday, the disciples in John 20:20 were described as overjoyed, especially because if you look up the definition of joy, the parallel of that is rejoice. The scripture reads in NIV, "After He said this, He showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord." However, since we saw that the parallel of joy is rejoice we can change it to, "After He said this, He showed them his hands and side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord."

John 20 ends with this amazing reminder, "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name." If you read through the Old Testament you will see that they had to do sacrifices for the Lord, but we get to live in a time where a sacrifice was given in our place. "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" Romans 5:6-8.

We are sinful, and unholy, but God loved us so much that He sent His son to die in our place and be raised to life on Sunday. Lean into that fact this weekend, and rejoice in your salvation and the sacrifice the Lord gave in our place.


Psalm 51:12
"Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."