Saturday's Darkness

If Friday was a day of uncontrollable grief that poured out of the soul in torrents of tears, then Satuday was the kind of day which hosted a grief that was mostly empty of the tears for they had been cried out, but one that was filled with a hopelessness that sucked the air out of life.  When Jesus was taken down from the cross toward the coming Sabbath on Friday, everyone knew He was dead.  It did not require waiting on someone like a modern day coroner to confirm the death, or to confirm the cause of it.  The women, including the mother of Jesus, had watched.  And though the disciples might have been on the fringe out of fear for their own personal safety, they watched, too.  All knew when the limp body came to the ground that there was no life in it.    

And, so when Saturday's sun rose, there was nothing but despair and sorrow to hold their lives together.  It was a kind of loss which numbs, a kind of grief which settles down in the soul, and the kind of sorrow that is felt as something which will have no end.  Even though Jesus had spoken of being raised from the dead, there were no voices or whispers which were saying, "He is going to rise from the dead."  They knew Jesus was dead and regardless of what He might have said another day, dead men stay dead.  It had always been that way.   

The only thing to be anticpated on Saturday was doing something forbidden by Jewish law on that Sabbath day which was finishing the task of making the body of Jesus ready for burial.  Time did not allow for this to be  completed on Friday evening as the Sabbath was rushing toward them so they planned to return at daybreak on Sunday to finish what was still incomplete.  It was this dark task which was anticipated on Holy Saturday, not some glorious resurrection.  And so they went through that day between Golgotha and the Empy Tomb as people whose lives had been shattered.  Little did they know that the darkness of Saturday was about to explode with a light that would forever shine.