Saturday....

It was Saturday. Yesterday was Friday. Yesterday they had watched Him die. Yesterday they had witnessed the sun refusing to shine and the earth quaking because their Creator had lost His life. They had watched him be tortured and beaten. They had witnessed the crowds mocking Him and them nailing Him to die on a cross. They had been there when He cried that it was finished. They had seen Him be buried. They knew He was gone.
And now it was Saturday...they had woken to hopelessness and fear of the unknown that lay before them. This Man they had followed for three years was now gone. His Father had allowed Him to be crucified and now He was lying in a borrowed tomb. They were afraid for their futures for they did not understand what Sunday would bring. They remembered the horror of Friday. Now they were scattered...fearful for their very lives.
Saturday was a day of darkness and hopelessness. It was a day of fear and not knowing what would follow. The hopelessness they felt on that Saturday had to be heart wrenching and horrible. They had been with Jesus for three years and today He was gone...silent...and they were as sheep without a shepherd.
We spend a lot of our time in Saturdays. We have heard the words of our Lord and we know them to be true, and yet we get hit with Fridays that are dark, hard, and desperate. We watch things in our lives fall apart with no hope of them being repaired. We have Fridays when the last thing we ever expected happens and we find ourselves lost for what to do next. There are days in our lives when the sun seems to hide itself from us and our heart feels as if it is being ripped in two. There are days when God seems painfully silent and we feel that He has turned His back on us.
Saturdays can be a time of waiting. A time when we rehearse the events of the day before trying to find evidence of hope or at least a sense of understanding. Saturdays can be dark and long. Saturdays can leave us looking at Friday without any hope for a Sunday. Saturdays are the days when faith comes in and calms your heart. It's the time when you wait on God not knowing how long the wait will be. Saturday is the period between Friday's heartbreak and Sunday's unspeakable joy.
I've spent a lot of time in Saturdays. I've endured the pain of Friday not knowing how long it would be before Sunday would come. But there's a lesson in Saturday. Jesus Himself had a period of waiting. He didn't go straight from the humiliation and pain of the cross to the glory of His resurrection. For there was Saturday. The day creation would wait for her King to rise. The day when Satan felt he had defeated Christ as He lay there in that tomb. The day when His followers would find themselves engulfed in hopelessness. The day when God was silent as His Son slept. Saturday was necessary as part of the process.
We all have Saturdays in our lives. That time in the middle when we wait for God to take our pain and suffering and turn it into something for His glory. The time when it seems that God is silent or maybe even gone. Sometimes Saturdays last a really long time. Sometimes it seems like a Saturday will never end.
But soon enough Saturday becomes Sunday. Hope comes from despair. Beauty comes from brokenness. Love breaks free and unspeakable joy comes out of the very places where hopelessness once abounded. So if you are in a Saturday, hold on. Don't give up in the waiting. For the hurt on Friday will turn to hope on Sunday. The brokenness of Friday will birth beauty on Sunday. The pain of Friday will give you purpose on Sunday. So hold on through Saturday because Sunday is just around the corner.