Normally we skip Easter Saturday - having done a walk of witness on Friday, and then celebrations on the Sunday. Yet this year with lockdown impinging on our Easter it gives us an opportunity to think a bit more on the Saturday in between.
At theological college a deep and searching question is 'Where was God on Easter Saturday?'. We are not going to go quite that deep, but it is worth us asking how many verses in the Bible actually relate to that day? It is none, a few or actually quite a lot?
Well in the gospels John has none - the story skips straight from crucifixion to resurrection. Luke has one, telling how the women rested on the Saturday (it being the sabbath). Mark has about a half - mentioning the sabbath but only to move the story straight on to the resurrection. Matthew however has five! He documents the business of the chief priests going back to Pilate to get a Roman guard posted outside the tomb. Read carefully and you discover this was on the Saturday (curious, because the chief priests themselves should have been resting on the sabbath!).
The Easter Saturday, a sabbath, supposedly a day of rest. Yet for the followers of Jesus it must have been anything but rest. It must have been a day of emotional turmoil, having witnessed the events of the previous day.
It was stacking up to be a day for evil to try and triumph. Think again of those chief priests and their request to Pilate: "Put a guard there, we don't want any of that talk that he might rise again". In other words 'let us ensure we hold the body in the tomb, where it will decay'. That is evil all over - wanting to hold in darkness, death and decay.
Yet there is another verse that speaks of Easter Saturday. Psalm 16 verses 10 says: 'You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay'. This poem written 100s of years previously talks about Jesus. About the fact that God will raise Jesus from the dead. He won't let him simply decay, but will overcome death.
And thus also overcome evil. Jesus will be vindicated (recap from two weeks ago).
Right now we are in a wilderness time - stuck in our houses. Its like an Easter Saturday that is ongoing, and a sense that evil wants to hold us here forever. Yet God is faithful. He will not abandon to the realm of the dead, or let the faithful one see decay. God will raise! We will be led through to an eventual release, as surely as Christ is raised from the dead. The wilderness time will be temporary, the resurrection is certain.
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