Don't let Saturday be just a gap
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Easter has always been my favorite holiday.
As a child, it wasn’t because of the celebration of the goodness of God to send his only son to die for our sins and raise him up from the dead on the third day. It was because the music was always awesome and the church I grew up in busted at the seams and always needed extra ushers.
This was Kyle’s opportunity to shine.
I put on my best suit, my Jr. Usher nametag and told people where to sit. I definitely let the “power” go to my head.
As unspiritual as my Easter motives were, I distinctly remember the effort on my childhood church’s part to commemorate the whole story of Christ’s death and resurrection. They worked hard to provide a tangible experience of Easter.
On Palm Sunday, we felt the exuberant expectation of the Messiah who saves. On Thursday night, we felt the tension of the first Lord’s Supper. On Friday night, we felt the solemnity and grief and anguish of Jesus’ death on the cross. On Sunday, with trumpets blasting (literally — they always really pulled out all the stops) we felt the victory and hope and pure celebratory joy of the resurrection.
But Saturday was always kind of emotionally confusing. After a whole week of remembering together, Saturday left a vacuum.
And if it was so in commemoration, imagine being a disciple on that lonely Saturday — that Passover Sabbath, when dashed hopes of a new revolutionary political deliverance from Rome made the celebration of an ancient revolutionary political deliverance from Egypt seem empty and meaningless.
Then there was also the fear.
We don’t actually know what the disciples were doing that Saturday. Scripture skips the whole day altogether. What we do know is that when the writers of the Gospels pick the story back up on Sunday, the disciples were hiding in the upper room with the door locked, wondering if the Jewish leaders and Roman soldiers would come for them in the night like they had come for Jesus. With their Messianic hopes evaporated and their leader, teacher and friend dead, the disciples fled to the room they had rented for their last meal with Jesus.
Did they remember that last dinner with him? Did that last meal make sense to them yet? Or were they just too worried about what was going to happen next to remember what Jesus had already promised?
We know from Scripture that the disciples were not ready for what God would do next. They were surprised and caught off-guard. When the early reports came in, they refused to believe. Instead of saying to Mary, “You know, that makes sense because Jesus told us he would be raised from the dead,” the disciples refused to believe. Thomas, even days later when all the other disciples had seen Jesus, refused to believe it.
I believe San Angelo is in a kind of Saturday right now. Our city is filled with grief and pain. There are plenty of people who have been devastated. There are plenty lives which have fallen apart. There are plenty hopes that have been dashed. There are plenty of people hunkered-down, waiting behind locked doors to see what new evil will befall them.
But what is the church doing?
Are we ready to see God do something? When he does act, will we be ready for it? On the national and local stages alike, events and movements are increasingly building a social and economic tension that must break somehow, someday, and that will be the day God acts.
Maybe things seem bleak in your own personal life. Maybe you have personally suffered loss, and you are wondering when God will do something. Maybe you’ve lost hope that he would and things keep getting worse. There will be a day that they will not or cannot get worse and that will be the day God acts.
I believe the way we spend this Saturday season is important. We can cower in denial or we can look up and begin to look for what God is doing.
The disciples did not do the right thing with their Saturday. They worried and hid instead of seeking the face of God. They kept their heads down instead of waiting expectantly for God to act.
I invite you to avoid the same mistake. While we wait for God to act in San Angelo, I invite you to pray with me today, right now, to seek his face. Put your newspaper, tablet, laptop or phone down for a moment and go to God. Ask him to do something in our city and nation, and ask him to show it to you. Ask him to do something in your life. Ask him for the strength to join him in his work. Ask him for the heart to be the man or woman of God he’s made you to be.
Don’t let Saturday just be the gap between Good Friday and Easter. Let’s make this a seeking Saturday.