SATURDAY, APRIL 19
Psalm 46:1-11; Psalm 34:18-19
Saturday. The Gospels, and Scripture in general, have very little to say about what happened that day. Also known as Black Saturday, it is often overlooked and known as the forgotten day of Holy Week. We don’t want to remember. We want to forget the feelings of desolation and despair it brought with it. But it wasn’t forgotten or overlooked by the followers of our Savior at the time of His crucifixion. They lived it.
Saturday was a day of loss, mourning, despair, and confusion. Only a few days prior the disciples and other followers were filled with hope and expectation, only to now find themselves devastated by unimaginable grief and sorrow. The man they believed to be the Messiah, the one sent by God to save them, was now dead and buried in a tomb, sealed and guarded. The earth had trembled, the day had grown eerily dark, and everything - the future they once dreamed of – vanished with the sun. Everything was overshadowed by their immense grief. I don’t know how they slept through the night Friday night, other than by sheer emotional exhaustion.
Have you ever been there? In that pit of despair? Dragging through sleepless nights because ALL has been lost, and there seems to be no hope, no promise of a future? It’s in those moments that we must pause and reflect on the sheer depth of God’s love because it’s only in those moments that we ever even come close to understanding His love.
It was in the midst of Black Saturday, that the disciples were reminded, and we should take note too, it’s especially in the darkest moment of our lives, the moments of our greatest despair, that God is at work. They didn’t see it and neither do we, but in God’s providence, He was (is) not finished. What appeared to them to be the end, to be the loss no one could come back from, God had something so much greater on the horizon. He IS still at work. He is not finished with you or the rest of Humanity. Lean into His love. Yes, He was crucified on Friday, but, in the words of SM Lockridge, “Sunday’s comin’.”
Take some time today to reflect on where you have seen God at work in your life through the years. Write those experiences/ebenezers (faith markers) down. Journal about those times and thank God for His faithfulness.
Saturday was a day of loss, mourning, despair, and confusion. Only a few days prior the disciples and other followers were filled with hope and expectation, only to now find themselves devastated by unimaginable grief and sorrow. The man they believed to be the Messiah, the one sent by God to save them, was now dead and buried in a tomb, sealed and guarded. The earth had trembled, the day had grown eerily dark, and everything - the future they once dreamed of – vanished with the sun. Everything was overshadowed by their immense grief. I don’t know how they slept through the night Friday night, other than by sheer emotional exhaustion.
Have you ever been there? In that pit of despair? Dragging through sleepless nights because ALL has been lost, and there seems to be no hope, no promise of a future? It’s in those moments that we must pause and reflect on the sheer depth of God’s love because it’s only in those moments that we ever even come close to understanding His love.
It was in the midst of Black Saturday, that the disciples were reminded, and we should take note too, it’s especially in the darkest moment of our lives, the moments of our greatest despair, that God is at work. They didn’t see it and neither do we, but in God’s providence, He was (is) not finished. What appeared to them to be the end, to be the loss no one could come back from, God had something so much greater on the horizon. He IS still at work. He is not finished with you or the rest of Humanity. Lean into His love. Yes, He was crucified on Friday, but, in the words of SM Lockridge, “Sunday’s comin’.”
Take some time today to reflect on where you have seen God at work in your life through the years. Write those experiences/ebenezers (faith markers) down. Journal about those times and thank God for His faithfulness.
