So, the 41st post in a 40 day challenge. I made a mistake at the beginning and wrote a full post on a Sunday, so reached the end of my 40 days before I reached the end of lent. So the final lenten post.
On Good Friday, we remember Jesus dieing. On Easter Sunday we celebrate Jesus rising. On the day in between we…. well, we wait. It was the Sabbath, so the disciples had to wait. They couldn’t distract themselves with work. They couldn’t go and mourn by his body. The had to wait.
Today, Easter Saturday is much like any other Saturday. We can still go about our lives much like any other day. I found myself being busy preparing for tomorrow. But then I got to the end of the day and realised I hadn’t really stopped. The point of Easter Saturday is that nothing happened. Or at least, nothing we could see happened.
Jesus did something on Easter Saturday. That’s not written about in the bible. We read that he is laid in the tomb, and we read that the rock is rolled away and Jesus isn’t there, but we don’t read about what happened because we don’t know. We don’t know what God did. We did nothing, but God won a victory. He must have, because Jesus rose again.
There’s something in that for us today. There are some victories only God can win. And we can’t see what he does. We will see the victory (although we need patience) but we don’t see what God is doing.
Because of the culture of the time, those that loved Jesus were forced to be still. They were forced to wait, not knowing there would be a victory. They were forced to sit with their despair and hopelessness, not knowing what the future would hold.
We know what happens next. We have the advantage of knowing the end of the story. Or at least, the end of that chapter of the story. We don’t have to sit in hopelessness or despair. But we can learn from the disciples. Sometimes we do need to sit. We need to be still. We need to let go of the battle and let God do his thing. Because we know Jesus wins, we can hold onto hope, we can put our trust in him; he has a proven track record of winning impossible battles!
But today, for me, I am reminded of the need to stop and wait on God. I am reminded to lay down the battles and the struggles. As Psalm 46 puts it, I need to remember: Be still and know that I am God
The Reason for my Hope Blog 