In Between Two Worlds

By nature, I’m someone who ponders. Something pops into my head and it’s usually followed by a quick Google search. It can as pedestrian as the makeup of grape skins. Doesn’t matter. That’s just how my brain works.

Today’s subject is what’s called Holy Saturday. When I first read that this is what it’s called, I remember thinking that they could have been more creative. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Resurrection Sunday, these make their mark. Holy Saturday…ok. It is what it is.

If there’s some kind of system in eternity (and I really hope there is) where we’ll have the ability to rewatch or relive scenes from biblical history, this will be a big one for me. I picture it like a giant movie theater where the rooms are numbered 1-1000 or whatever. Parting of the sea? Go to theatre 5. Elijah on Mt. Carmel, that’ll be number 25. Maybe there won’t be as big of a crowd as there might be for the feeding of the 5,000 but this is what I want to see. I want to be wherever the disciples were between Friday afternoon when they learned that Jesus had passed and Sunday morning when EVERYTHING changed.

The biblical record doesn’t provide much. Matthew tells us that it was on Saturday that the chief priests and some other Pharisees asked Pilate to secure the tomb in which Jesus was laid. Mark gives us the Friday burial. John, not a word, and it all makes sense when you consider these words from Luke 23:56, “On the Sabbath, they rested according to the commandment.”

But we know it wasn’t simply on account of the Sabbath. It’s not that if Jesus had died on a Tuesday, they’d be going about their daily activities as if nothing had happened. Friday marked a new reality for the Lord’s small band of followers. Life as they had known it for the past three years was over.

What were they feeling? What were they thinking? The best we can do is try and imagine ourselves in their sandals so to speak. I would have wondered how I got it all wrong. I mean you spend that much time with someone, day in and day out over more than a thousand of them, you’d think you’d know the person. When had He ever wavered in His convictions about anything? When did He inspire anything less than total confidence? No one lived like Jesus lived. No one talked or taught like He did. No one accomplished what we’d seen with our own eyes. There’s NO WAY we dreamt it all; not the twelve (correction: eleven) of us. How could His life come to that kind of end?

I would have been afraid of the Jewish leaders. I would have feared the Romans. I’d have even been scared to return home to face whichever family members I’d left behind to devote myself to this teacher. What if they’d warned me not to go? Most likely, I’d have spent all of Saturday in a state of shock trying to piece together how my life was supposed to move forward. How do you settle on something that has more in common with hell when you’ve seen the Kingdom of Heaven draw near?

I’d like to think the disciples were together over that Saturday. We know they were for the most part on Sunday. When the women arrived with the news that the grave was empty, it doesn’t appear that they had to go from house to house. What I do know is that wherever they were physically, God allowed them to sit in their despair. He permitted the confusion, the anxiety, the doubt. He gave their minds free rein to contemplate all manner of what ifs. Why, because He knew Sunday was coming and Saturday would stand as a lesson for the remainder of their time on earth. God. Can. Be. Trusted.

This is as unusual an Easter weekend as most of us will ever experience. The what ifs are all over the place. I’m not sure they can even be quantified. Just like the disciples sat in between the world of what life was before Friday and what it would be after Sunday, we sit in between what we had before COVID-19 and what we don’t have a clue is coming when it’s all concluded, compounded by the fact that we can’t even say when that will be.

Yet, God is still God. Jesus died on a Friday and He rose on a Sunday. I believe all of it happened and that it directly and dramatically impacts our lives today. To trust that His death was for you is to belong to Him and when that happens there is zero ontological difference between His people today and those who walked the earth with Him 2,000 years ago. God’s as committed to us as He was to them. There is no distinction.

Sitting here between two worlds, it helps me to know that everything I’m feeling isn’t unusual. I’m not unique. Others have been scared before me. Others have worried and God loves us all. He allows us to sit in silence. He permits our minds to run wild. He wants us to trust Him and He knows we fall woefully short. But He’s still at work. His purposes are not deterred. His intentions for me and for you have not changed. We simply need to live our lives and see what happens. With God, it’s always worth it. Always.

Sola Deo Gloria