The Waiting Day

“It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandments.” - Luke 23:54-56”

You gotta believe that this particular Sabbath day was a really hard kind of "rest." Jesus had just been killed in front of them. Who can rest if you were anywhere close to that scene?

Emotional rest? Hardly.

Spiritual rest? How about spiritual wrestling?

Physical rest? Maybe. But the body doesn't rest well when the mind and heart are shaken. Anxious. Wondering. Grieving. Confused.

The Waiting Day. The Silent Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. We know the rest of the story, we sit on the other side, so our resting, our waiting, is different. Many of us can't wait to sing out and celebrate that our God is very, very alive.

But these women described in Luke? I wonder what self-talk they had going on. What internal emotional stress, burden, anger and self defeat? How was their inner dialogue going for them?

And aren't we there many days? In our own Waiting Day? Caught between the Already But Not Yet of it all. Between Eden and this broken world. Between fear and faith. Between death and life. 

And certainly caught between who you know you can be (since you've had glimpses of your awesome self and what it was made to do) and who you are a lot of the time. Between dead-end choices and life-giving lives. 

I am so thankful that on this Silent Saturday, the Waiting Day, we are looking forward to a resurrected King.

And toward a resurrected life and self.
A resurrected joy.
A rising hope.
A new mercy-filled heart and mind and soul.
Thank God, in it all, Jesus was not a man who had no idea about our own Waiting Days. He can empathize with us in it all:

““For we do NOT have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with CONFIDENCE draw near to the throne of GRACE, that we may receive MERCY and find GRACE to help in time of need.” - Hebrews 4:15-16”

May The Waiting Day be for us one that is face forward toward hope. That we stand with head held high in confidence and grace and mercy RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of our anxiety, grief, stumbling, fear, frustration and sin. Because He wrote the check and paid for everything we've ever done and will do. No one can condemn us and call us unworthy. No one. Jesus took every unworthy thought, action, and word upon Himself and it got nailed to the cross and left for dead. Our sin stays dead. Jesus and His righteousness are our new life now.  

Tomorrow we will celebrate that His grace is enough. That grace wins. That love covers. That mercy reigns. 

He is absolutely in the Waiting Day.