A Long, Dark Saturday

A Meditation on Holy Saturday

Today's Scriptural Truths

"He was despised & rejected by men, a man of sorrows & familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, & we esteemed Him not. Surely He took up our infirmities & carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, & afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, & by His wounds we are healed."  Isaiah 53:3-5

Today's Devotional Thoughts

When is the nightmare going to end? Peter can't bear to lift his head & look any of his brothers in the eye. James & John sit off in a corner by themselves, occasionally given to quiet conversation that no one else is privileged to hear. Matthew broods.

Sleep? It came so easily in the Garden when Jesus asked, no, begged them to stay awake, be alert, pray with Him . . . it seems like ages ago . . . it was less than two days ago.

And then their world came tumbling down around them . . . Sleep? Now there is no sleep to be had.

James can't get the faces of the two thieves out of his mind . . . He remembers all too well how he & his brother convinced his mother to ask Jesus to reward them with the honored seats on His right & left hand when His Kingdom was restored . . . 

Some kingdom . . . A crown of thorns? A body bruised, battered, blood streaming in rivulets & pooling on the ground . . . The shrieks of the criminals as their legs were broken had made his brother physically ill.

Why didn't Jesus prove that He was the Messiah by stepping off that awful tree? Why did He die . . . Why did we think that we should be so honored to claim the seats of glory on His right & left side . . . It could have been us on the other two crosses . . . SHOULD have been us . . . 

John keeps looking at Peter. He should feel anger at Peter . . . yet he feels pity . . . The brawny, bragging fishermen . . . always quick to speak . . . quick to act . . . slow to think Peter . . . Willing to swear his allegiance to Jesus to the point of death . . . willing to draw a lone sword in the face of all those temple guards in the Garden . . . then running like a rabbit along with the rest of them . . . then denying that he even knew who Jesus was . . . using a sacred oath that only made him look guiltier . . . 

And when Jesus turned & looked at Peter in the courtyard . . . John had seen that look . . . and he had seen the anguish in Peter's face as everything Jesus had predicted came rushing back to haunt Peter . . . There must still be at least a little bit of the brash Galilean left in him to dare to come back & join the others.

Matthew broods . . . He recalls the exact time & place when Jesus called him . . . a tax collector . . . of all people to be a disciple? Unimaginable! Yet Jesus had been his best friend for three years . . . had taught him scripture in a way that Matthew had never heard it taught by any rabbi or scribe . . . had seen Jesus walk on water . . . had seen Jesus feed thousands with a few loaves & a couple of dried-up fish . . . had marveled at Jarius' daughter . . . at Lazarus . . . 

And then . . . the last 24 hours had been a blur, but this much he recalled from the prophet . . . He had truly seen his Messiah despised & rejected . . . despised . . . stricken by God . . . HIS OWN HEAVENLY FATHER?!

Smitten by Him . . . afflicted . . . pierced . . . crushed . . . punished . . . wounded . . . 

Dead . . . and where was Thomas?!

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

And then . . . in the midst of a dismal, darkened room . . . silent . . . barricaded for fear that they would be arrested any time & suffer the same fate . . . on a dreary . . . terrible Saturday when time seems to have stopped . . . it happens . . . if only for a brief moment.

The rest of the prophet's words come to mind . . . 

"Pierced for our transgressions...crushed for our iniquities...punishment that brought us peace...by His wounds we are healed."

Transgressions like wanting self-glory . . . Always keeping that image of a heavenly kingdom in the back of their minds instead of the Kingdom Jesus kept trying to push into their thick skulls? Yes.

Transgressions like confessing Jesus as Lord & Savior one moment . . . then denying His Lordship, not just by word but also by deed the next? Yes.

Transgressions like our own countless moral failures, weaknesses . . . failing those we love . . . failing a God who never fails? Yes.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

In that briefest of moments, James, John, & Matthew make eye contact with each other . . . Each notices the puffy, red, tear-swollen, sleep-deprived eyes of the others . . . But in that briefest of moments their is the slightest, infinitesimal flashes of hope.

And in that briefest of moments, Peter, too, raises his head & makes the briefest of eye contact with his brothers . . . Does he feel the forgiveness of His Lord & Savior . . . Does he feel THEIR forgiveness?

They give him the briefest of nods before his head droops in silent agony again.

It's Saturday . . . It's very dark . . . It seems like they will never get the image of their dead brother, dead, nailed to a cross, out of their minds . . . It seems like they will never sleep again . . . Never dare to hope again? It's still many hours before dawn . . . 

Today's Prayer Thoughts

• Give thanks for a God who loved us so much that He was willing to sacrifice His one & only Holy Son for unholy people . . . you & me.
• Give thanks for a Savior who loved us so much that He was willing to endure the cross & all the the rejection & agony that came with it in order to make forgiveness & salvation possible for unholy people . . . you & me.
• Pray that those who do not yet know the message of the cross would come to receive the Gospel message & know that the God who sent His Son into the world to save sinners, sent His Son into the world to save them.
• Pray that they would know Jesus as their Lord & Savior & celebrate Easter Sunday as they have never celebrated it before.