low in the grave he lay

i have seen a lot of recent posts on facebook stating something along the lines of "sunday's coming".  as CHRISTians, we focus on the passion week, starting with palm sunday, all the way to maundy thursday, and then good friday, with the culmination being resurrection sunday.  by the time we get to good friday, the focus then shifts to sunday.  while sunday is very important, we neglect saturday to our detriment.  we know very little about that saturday between Christ's death and His resurrection.  we can infer a few things, but the Bible is silent about the events between the death of Christ and the resurrection.  we know that joseph of arimathea provided a tomb for Him to be laid in and he and nicodemus prepared Him for burial by wrapping Him in clean linen and spices, with mary and mary magdalene present.  we also know that the jewish leaders petitioned pilate to place a roman guard in front of the tomb to prevent His disciples from "stealing the body" and saying He was resurrected.  but in terms of the disciples, we know nothing about that saturday between His death and resurrection.

maybe the Bible is silent on this day because it is not important.  we know that saturday is the sabbath, and the disciples were resting on the sabbath according to law, so maybe this is why the Bible is silent on this day.  but one very important thing we can assume from what the Bible does tell us, is that saturday was a very long one.  we know that the disciples went into hiding on that friday, and that they were still in hiding on sunday.  we know that they were sad and downcast from the conversation on the road to emmaus.  so even though the Bible is silent on the actual events of saturday in terms of the disciples, it communicates a lot.

as CHRISTians, we all have what i call "saturday mourning" experiences.  as a chaplain, one of my many duties is making casualty calls on the families of deceased marines and sailors.  as a hospital chaplain, i was also responsible for being there when families received the news that their family member passed away or when patients received a grim prognosis.  i not only was there for the initial notification, but for the aftermath as well.  there are times in all of our lives when we experience those times of solemnity.  we have received bad news, and there is an outpouring of support from friends and family members, but eventually those friends and family have to return to their lives and we are left on our own to process what has been told to us.  it is in those times that God can seem like He's light years away, and we can feel left all alone to deal with the crushing blow that has come our way.  sometimes, the dark times in our lives can cause us to forget the promises God has made to us.  even the disciples forgot that Jesus said that He would rise again on the third day.  the jewish leaders didn't forget it.  they even tried to prevent it.  but they didn't just lose the one person that they had put all their hopes and dreams on.  the disciples were sad, and they were afraid.  and they were hiding.  all because they had lost their faith that God was still there and was still going to keep His promise.

in our lives, it's easy to think that God has somehow forsaken us or forgot about us when things don't go the way we think they should.  we are never promised an easy life, and on the contrary, we are promised the exact opposite as CHRISTians.  so when we are in those "saturday mournings", we can rest assured that God's promises still hold true, and that just because things didn't work out the way we expected, it doesn't mean we didn't have enough faith, it means that we still need to have faith that God is still there and is still in control.  because until we get to heaven, "saturday mournings" will come, and are in fact, inevitable.  we may be tempted to go into hiding, as many CHRISTians do, both from God, and the people of God.  but we should not remain in hiding, or remain downtrodden, because during our times of sadness, we can be a more powerful witness of the One who is bringing "resurrection morning", to a world that is in perpetual "saturday mourning" without hope.