Holy Week: Silent Saturday
By Andrew Malek
Have you ever had to wait longer for something than you expected? It can be one of the most difficult things to do in life …wait. Patience is a virtue, but it is not one that many possess. In all areas of life, the act of patience can be excruciating. You take a test you have been studying for days, and the teacher informs you that the results will be in on Monday. You studied, prepared, and the excitement of a job well done is prolonged. Confidence is high as you walk out of class, but as the day goes on and the weekend unfolds you find yourself questioning your answers, replaying each moment of the exam in your head. What you once thought was an ‘A’ has now turned into, “I failed, I know it.” You send an email to your instructor asking for updates, hoping to get a response to help ease the stress. But all you get is silence….Does that scenario give you anxiety? I know it does for me. It’s that feeling of doubt. It creeps into the space between what you believe to be true and waiting to see if it is true. I imagine that is what Saturday was like for the followers of Jesus. They heard Him say that the Son of Man would be crucified in two days and that He would rise again (Matthew 26:1-2, 31-32). He told them He would die and rise again.
It’s that Saturday of silence that had to create doubt. Did they doubt what they heard? Did they start to replay those moments with Jesus in their heads, asking themselves if they missed something He said? Maybe they were questioning their decision to follow Jesus.
The silence of Saturday had to be difficult. The waiting, hoping, believing. How long has He been gone? Was He supposed to be dead this long? Why hasn’t He come back yet? Can we just get one sign, anything to let us know we aren’t crazy?
What they didn’t know then, we know now. Jesus was anything but silent on Saturday. He was busy, conquering sin, death and the grave. Saturday was silent on earth but deafening in eternity.
This is how Jesus works. When we trust in Him, silence is no longer a place for doubt, it is the stillness of trust because we have a Savior who is working on our behalf. If He said it, He will do it.
When we experience silence, or feel that Jesus is not speaking, we must remind ourselves that the silence that Saturday was the quiet before the greatest victory mankind will ever know. That Jesus is the same Jesus who is alive and at work in our lives today.
Prayer: Lets pray and ask for a reminder that silence is not a sign that you have left us. It is a sign that you are still working it out. That Jesus would help you to trust in Him, knowing that if He said it, He will be faithful to complete it.