If you've ever felt like your whole world has ended, this day is for you.
Saturday is the quietest day of Holy Week.
The crowds are gone.
The disciples are hiding.
The man many people hoped would rescue them from Rome
is buried behind a sealed stone.
Roman guards stand watch outside.
Religious leaders feel relief.
They think the problem has been solved.
But for Jesus’ followers
this day feels unbearable.
Everything they believed in seems buried with him.
Because the truth is… nobody expected resurrection.
Not the disciples.
Not the crowds.
Not the religious leaders.
To them, the cross meant the end.
The end of hope.
The end of the movement.
The end of the story.
The women who followed Jesus had prepared spices to anoint his body.
But the Sabbath arrives before they can return to the tomb.
So they wait.
And sometimes the hardest place to live is in that waiting.
Between loss…
and hope.
Between death…
and resurrection.
If you were there that day, you would have no idea what was about to happen.
But behind the silence…
God was still at work.
Because the story of Jesus was never meant to end in a grave.
And the rescue he came to bring wasn’t finished yet.
Sunday was coming.
And with it…
a resurrection that would change everything.
Not just for a few disciples in Jerusalem.
But for anyone searching for hope beyond religion.
Tomorrow, we celebrate the moment that changed everything.
Resurrection.
Not religion.
Hope that death itself cannot stop.
62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63 “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”
65 “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.
55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
Today, we lean in to the waiting
Trusting that God is at work in our lives, just like He was that day during Holy Week.
For many of us, faith and hope are elusive.
Like the father seeking healing for his son in Mark 9,
We cry: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
Whatever feels dead in your life right now,
Wherever you are waiting on Resurrection,
There is only One who has walked through death to bring it about.
And He is still walking through it with you now.
Tomorrow, we celebrate.
But today, we wait.
Today, we hope.
