Sometimes I feel sorry for Holy Saturday. That's the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We rightly place great emphasis on the events of Good Friday, after all the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ is the supreme act in God's plan to atone for and forgive our sins. And there is no more glorious thought than that of our Savior rising from the dead in majesty. So, it makes all kinds of sense for us to look at that Friday and that Sunday with supreme affection. But what about the Saturday in between? It stands there, forgotten. The Bible doesn't say much about what was going on in and around Jerusalem on that Saturday as our Savior's body lay in the tomb. We do know that some of the women who followed and loved Jesus went to the market in the evening to secure enough spices to give Jesus's body a proper preparation for burial. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus did their best late Friday afternoon, but they were constrained by the beginning of the last Old Covenant sabbath at twilight. So, our ancient sisters wanted to be ready to go to the tomb first thing Sunday morning, even before the market opened, so that they could dress their Master's body before decomposition took its toll. The Bible doesn't say anything about what the other disciples did that Saturday, or what was their state of mind. Yet, it doesn't take the most fertile imagination to come up with a very plausible suggestion of how they felt. The man on whom they had placed all their hopes was dead. They were convinced he was going to sit on David's throne and restore Israel's glory. Instead, he died as a common criminal. They really hadn't gotten the point of what Jesus was all about. If the state of those two disciples on the road to Emmaus is any indication of the general state of mind of the rest of the disciples, then they were all confused and in despair. Why the Saturday anyway? Why not just come back to life Friday night? The most obvious reason is to show that Jesus was really dead. There was anecdotal evidence of people who were thought to be dead waking up within hours (that's where the concept of a wake came from; to make sure that the deceased is really dead). But after 24 hours, the dead person was really dead. Thus, the Saturday is a massive billboard telling the world that Jesus was really dead. This fact (Jesus being really dead) is as important of a truth as the fact that he is now alive. It is because of the fact that Jesus really died that we are forgiven by the Father. A second reason for the Saturday is that the disciples needed that time to contemplate the reality of the cross and the weightiness of the death of their Savior. After the resurrection, they could access those thoughts and feelings and grow in appreciation for the reality of the cross. In some ways, we live in that Saturday, though our Friday is less somber than the disciples'. We live in the Saturday between the Friday of Christ's resurrection and the Sunday of our resurrection, the Friday of Christ's first coming and the Sunday of his return. We live in the Saturday of the already and the not yet. The biggest difference between our Saturday and the disciples' is that we don't live in confusion and despair. We have the full revelation of Jesus Christ in the Bible and the blessed hope of the resurrection. So, as long as it is Saturday, we long for the Sunday of the Lord's return. And as we long for the return of Jesus, we proclaim his name till he comes. Happy Saturday!
http://olympiabp.blogspot.com/2020/04/thoughts-on-holy-saturday.html
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