Thursday, June 23

What Holy Saturday was like

A few weeks ago I was speaking with one of Adam's co-workers whose position had been eliminated. Have you ever been fired, lost your job, or were "downsized?" I have. In college I lost my part time job. I comforted myself with the knowledge that it was "just a coffee shop job" and that I had another part time job where I was well liked at and it was more stable.

But this wasn't the case for his coworker. This was his career, and his position being downsized at this time did not look good for his prospects.

He and his wife came over for dinner to say farewell. After dinner, as they were heading out the door, we were chatting and his wife said to me, "This was it for us. The last move. We were going to retire here. We're devastated."

I told her that I too was worried about the future for us. That I had regrets and wondered about career moves Adam and I had made. And that I had been pondering the Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, how the disciples felt.

The scripture tells us they were afraid, and stayed behind locked doors. Absolutely. I imagine that fear was the dominating emotion. But it could not have been the only one. How stupid and foolish they must have felt. To think this dead man was God? Clearly not. What regrets they must have felt. We gave up our fishing business to follow this guy? If we had only known. We would have made better decisions.

It's easy - when life is easy - to follow Christ and see his miracles and presume that we'll be walking around with Jesus, learning from him all the time, just waiting for the New Jerusalem to come down from the sky. We never really think on a daily basis that the big moments will come. Those life changing events that are tragic. Loss on the big scale. The ones that make you fear that the world has changed for you, and that it will never be right again.

On Holy Saturday, the unthinkable has happened, the fear is so palpable, and the future so dim, we easily forget that God does redeem and resurrect the things we think can't possibly return. We fear we've gone too far, beyond his reach.

But then: Resurrection Sunday. God is in the business of raising dead things. And he does it in such a spectacular way, that we'll always look back and say, "If I knew what you know, I would choose this too."

So for you today, if you're standing where we are, with a dark future full of unknowns, I pray for you - as I do us - that we remember that Saturday is only one day between the worst day and the best day. And that the Lord loves overcoming unbelievable odds.

Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.



With octaves of a mystic depth and height