The Saturday in Between

As I've been thinking about Jesus' death and resurrection this year, I've wondered what Saturday was like for his followers. I'm sure they slept only little and their thoughts and conversations were a confused mixture of contradictions. They weren't just mourning the death of a friend and companion, they were faced with the death of hope.

They were convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, the chosen one of God who came to sit on David's throne forever and set all things right. They had listened to him and determined that he had the words of eternal life. He had shown his power over nature by instantaneously turning the sea to glass when they were in a storm that had the experienced fishermen among them convinced they were in their last hour. He had cast demons out of madmen (as well as women and children) giving them freedom they never dreamed was possible. He had fed 5000 men with 5 loaves and 2 fish. They had watched blind people see for the first time in their lives, the deaf hear, the mute speak, the paralyzed run and leap for joy and lepers walk away with skin that was completely whole. Just a few weeks before, their  friend, Lazarus, had been dead and buried for 3 days but Jesus called to him  like he was in the next room and there he was, alive and just as hospitable as ever.

Every man who dies, suddenly becomes better than he was in real-life, but with Jesus it was really true. there were so many things he did that only God could do. If he had any fault, it was that he insisted upon insulting the religious leaders, calling them whitewashed tombs, a bunch of snakes and even worse, Satan's children. While everything he said was true, it got him killed, and that wasn't part of the plan. How could the Messiah, the coming King, the one who said he was the Son of God and was only doing what his Father told him to do, be dead? It made no sense. Jesus had been their hope and now that hope was dead. How could they have been so wrong? What did they miss that showed he wasn't the one to fulfill all those prophecies? I wonder if they thought of the times Jesus had told plainly told them that he was going to die and that on the 3rd day he would rise. It didn't make sense at the time; did it now give them a glimmer of hope?

It is not surprising to me that they had a very hard time believing that Jesus had really risen. It went against everything they had ever experienced. Their only clue had been prophecies they didn't understand as well as the people Jesus had raised from the dead. But once they believed, everything changed and they turned the world upside down.

Jesus' resurrection and its implications for our lives still goes against almost everything in our experience. The only thing I can find to do is join with Paul in asking God to open the eyes of our hearts so we can know the hope he gives, the extravagant value that he places on us and the immeasurable greatness of the resurrection power that is at work in all who believe.