Holy Week 2020 Saturday

It is the quietest day of Holy Week. 

As I ponder the scene and think about what it was like for the followers and disciples of Jesus the morning after the crucifixion, I picture them raw and hurting and bewildered. 

Peter is running back over the swift turn he made from vowing to die right beside Jesus to denying Him vehemently just hours later and a few feet away from where He was being tried in a one-sided courtroom. 

And I can certainly identify with the kicking oneself and the shame that comes after denying Christ out of fear of association.

I think of the women and John who had stood by the cross all day and who had witnessed His agony and humiliation. Helpless but unable to leave Him alone. 

I think of how, as a mother I have winced and felt the sting on my own knee when one of our children’s tender skin collided with the rough pavement, as children are prone to do. 

And I can well imagine Mary and the women who had tended Him out of a motherly love were aching inside and worn thin from what they had seen.

I can imagine Joseph and Nicodemus, with smeared blood still on their clothes from lifting His beaten body onto soft cloths and wrapping Him. I wonder if their arms and legs ached a bit from the labor of hurrying to get Him safely buried before the sun had set on the Sabbath.

I think of them observing this day of Sabbath rest, confined to inactivity while their hearts and minds and spirits tried to figure out what to do now. 

They had given up everything to follow Him and now He was gone. 

So they waited. 

They waited for what, to the best of their knowledge, was the next thing they could do. 

Today we are housebound again here in our world. We are going about the usual Saturday things knowing we have no other choices or options and it changes things. 

I can feel the weight of our own canceled plans and unmet expectations today..though certainly not of the epic scale of what the disciples were facing and how their disappointment would turn into the salvation of the world…goodness knows. 

But I can use these feelings of uncertainly and living in the in between to imagine how they would have felt on that day as they tried to comfort one another and yet all hope seemed lost. 

They were men and women just like you and me. 

They had questions and concerns and were trying hard to remember what He had taught them so they could hold on to this man they had loved and cared for and listened to and chosen to follow. 

In the quiet of this day, let’s consider in our own hearts the places where it may seem hope is lost…and let’s keep our eyes firmly on the promise we are blessed to know in our life times…

Sunday is coming <3