Silent Saturday And the Grief (and Hope!) of Good Friday.

We know about Good Friday...What about Saturday? What happened on that Silent Saturday as the disciples stewed in their hopelessness? They weren’t waiting for anything, because it really appeared that they did NOT believe Jesus would be coming back on Sunday. Indeed, the only reason the women went to the graveside is that they needed to embalm and prepare His body for permanent burial, and they couldn’t do that the day He died, because the Sabbath began that evening, and they didn’t have time, and they couldn’t work on the Sabbath.

Like the despairing disciples on the day before Jesus' resurrection, many of us are in the reality of grieving bewilderment. The reality of living in a very long, extended Friday, and a seemingly silent Saturday. We are believers in Christ. We trust Him. We look to Him. We believe His resurrection, but grief screams loudly in our lives. Sometimes - often - it is the only sound we can hear. Maybe we’ve lost a child, maybe we’ve lost a spouse. Maybe we are overwhelmed by injustice in the world, or more likely, a terrible injustice in our own life, and like MLK, we begin to doubt. Our heart begins to slide away and become cold. We stare at the walls like the disciples did on Silent Saturday in deep and utter despair.