Silent Saturday

I recently heard today, the Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, referred to as Silent Saturday and I thought that it's a very fitting description of the day. It should be a day of reflection but I think most of the time we just skip over it. Maybe we attend a Good Friday service. And we plan for our Easter dinner and family get together on Sunday but Saturday just gets skipped over. We're focused on finalizing our plans and stuffing Easter eggs. We forget all about the significance of this day. And it is very significant.

This year I was looking forward to Easter more then I have in years. I was looking forward to a family dinner on Saturday with a few of my siblings and my parents and grandparents. I was really looking forward to the huge special service my church was planning. I was so excited about it! And then... the Corona virus hit.

I'll admit I spent quite a bit of time being incredibly disappointed. All my plans were ruined. And that got me thinking about the first Easter about 2,000 years ago.

After about three years of traveling with Jesus, sharing in His ministry and performing miracles themselves the disciples headed back to Jerusalem with Him to prepare for the Passover. They were greeted with enormous crowds on the day we've come to celebrate as Palm Sunday. I imagine they loved it! I mean who wouldn't? Finally the rest of the world is coming to recognize what they already know, the man they've been following around is the Messiah! The Son of God! And now huge crowds are acknowledging it as Jesus rides into the city and they shout "Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

They must have felt so vindicated! And maybe it made it easy to ignore Jesus' warnings about his upcoming crucifixion. Or His tears as He looked out on Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44) and condemned it.

Soon though everything changed. One of their best friends betrayed them and the Messiah when Judas handed their beloved Jesus over to the Pharisees and He was arrested. On Good Friday the disciples watched the Messiah be crucified on a cross next to thieves, humiliated and beaten down. Their faith was shattered and they fled. I can't even imagine the grief and disappointment, the fear and doubt, that they must have been experiencing. And the next day, Silent Saturday, I'm sure they woke up praying it had all be some awful nightmare and when they realized it wasn't? I can't even begin to imagine, much less describe, the depths of those emotions.

I imagine they feared for their lives. After all they were well known associates of Jesus. No doubt they wondered how long until they themselves were arrested and killed. More then that, the whole foundation of their lives for the last several years had been built on Jesus being their Savior and now He was gone. How could they go on? What was the point of life anymore?

I think that this Easter some of us are dealing with those same questions. Perhaps not to the same degree but we're still struggling. We're wondering what we do now. How much longer will we be forced to stay at home in quarantine? What do we do if we can't work? Will our lives ever return to normal? We've been stripped of our freedom to go out and enjoy life, of our contact with loved ones and in many cases, our work in which we place so much of our identity. Where does that leave us?

The fact is that I don't have the answers to these question but what I do have is the end of the story. The part that the disciples didn't know about on Silent Saturday. I know that Saturday wasn't the end because next came Resurrection Sunday. Jesus rose again! He conquered death! He is our Savior and He is alive! That's where we find our identity. Not in our jobs or our contact with the outside world but in our Savior. That's what Easter, and every other day, is really about. Living our lives for Him.

I have no idea when our lives will return to normal, or how much longer we'll be in quarantine or what we should do while we wait. What I do know is that on this Easter when we can't be distracted by our normal celebrations it's a great time to focus on what this holiday is really about.

Silent Saturday should be a time of reflection but that reflection should ultimately remind us of the hope that we have in Jesus and the gift of salvation that He freely offers to us all. If you want to learn more about this please send me an email or leave a note in the comments and I will gladly talk to you about it.

Happy Easter my friends. He is risen!