Living in Saturday

I think we live our whole lives in the Saturday of Holy Week. 

This day between crucifixion and resurrection is perhaps the best picture of life on this earth. I’m not the first to call this out, but every year I find this a helpful reminder that this day of silence, this day of grief and confusion for the disciples, this day of disorientating Sabbath, is one we’re all quite familiar with. 

Today, a morning devotion I listened to invited the listeners to pray for someone “who feels the absence of a loved one particularly acutely today”. More than one name came to mind. My list was long. My list included myself. 

I thought about my friend, who I can almost guarantee will go visit her teenage son’s grave today. A teammate in year two of grief after the loss of her son which some have said can be even harder than year one. Current and past students who have lost parents, siblings, friends. A cousin walking through life without his father or sister. A teammate in the middle of funeral preparations for his father. A godchild and his siblings who may walk past their mom’s grave today. The sets of parents of a few former students who are no longer alive. 

As I said, my list is long. I could keep going. And the pain of this Holy Saturday isn’t just limited to the grief connected with death. We live in a world filled with so many times of pain, brokenness, longing, & hurt. Life on this earth IS living this Saturday. 

I’ve been in a variety of situations lately where questions have come up around why some people receive healing and some don’t…why some people get the blessings they’ve longed for, prayed for, cried a million tears for, and some don’t… why Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but not his cousin John… why protection was granted in certain situations but not in others. 

And I have some of these questions spinning in my own mind as well. The best answer I can come up with today is that we live in Saturday.

The reality is that all those people in scripture that Jesus healed or even raised from the dead, eventually still died. The blessings that other person got that you wanted, still came with challenges. Any protections we can hope in this life have a limit when you stop to think of the fact that death will come for all of us. 

I fully believe that, because of Christ’s resurrection that we celebrate tomorrow, we can live a joy-filled, abundant life here on this earth even before our own death and resurrection. (I believe it so much that I even wrote a book about it!)

And also, it’s not yet complete. We get tastes of this abundance and joy—and praise God that we do—but we also know every day the heartache, confusion, and disorientation, and silence of Saturday. 

The devotion I mentioned above that invited me to pray for my grieving friends suggested asking Jesus to walk with these people by His garden tomb, to weep with them, and bear witness to their pain. My first thought was a picture of Jesus sitting with my friend today as she visits her son’s grave. It was a comforting thought. 

And then I read it again. 

It said to ask Jesus to walk with these people by HIS tomb, not necessarily their loved one’s. And HIS tomb is now open and empty. I love the idea of Jesus walking with my loved ones, with me, weeping with us, but doing it in view of a rock-solid reality that is bigger than their pain. 

This is the hope we desperately cling to in this lifetime that feels like Saturday. We know a day is coming when all the graves will be busted open and emptied. We know a day is coming when all our deepest longings will be filled. We know a day is coming where we will be protected from any danger or struggle or grief, forever safe in the Father’s hands. We know a day is coming when death will die and all tears will be wiped away. 

But in the mean time we have a Savior who walks with, who weeps with us, who reminds us, whatever “Saturday” we’re living in today, it isn’t the end of the story.