When it comes to Biblical study, conjecture is something I do my best to avoid. In the search for truth, being objective is key. Often, the endeavor’s greatest challenge is to remove, as much as possible, the passions and prejudices that make us who we are, without losing our ability to imagine the details of the events.
Yet, my mind can’t help but wonder about the events on the Saturday between The Cross and The Resurrection.
Not much is recorded in the Bible about that Saturday. Obviously, being the Sabbath, they would have rested as recorded by Luke Chapter 23. Matthew’s Gospel records that the Pharisees placed a stone and a guards in front of the tomb in a response to Jesus’s predictions of returning from the grave.
Apparently, the disciples of Jesus had forgotten those predictions.
Perhaps, the events of Friday had eroded their faith. In any case, Saturday, must have been heartbreaking for those closest to Christ. It’s obvious from scripture they didn’t know Lockridge’s sermon “Sunday’s a Coming”. Jesus had led them on a journey of changing the world. God had already began to use them through their relationship with Jesus to literally save it, but they didn't know that. Jesus had introduced them to hope. They had been sure he was the Christ. All they knew, their friend and leader was dead. Their hopes and dreams were crushed. Their expectations of a messiah had expired. Once again the world seemed lost. They probably wondered if they had been wrong about Jesus. Surely, they must have wondered why hadn’t He done one of his miracles to save himself? Jesus had came and left. The sun had rose and set. He was gone and nothing would ever be the same again.
If you’ve ever lost someone you love and look up to, you know that first 24 hours are the darkest. It’s like you’re heart and mind are playing ping pong with gigantic boulders. Back and forth it comes close and you slap it away. No one can win and you just want to stop playing. So that maybe the boulder would fall on you. Except you’re afraid if you do, you’ll forget something about that special someone you don’t want to. It’s emotionally exhausting.
And none of those people we lost were Jesus. Imagine the sorrow the disciples felt, without the belief of a resurrection.
The church has the luxury of viewing Friday from victory.
The thing about luxury is it’s rarely satisfied. Great minds that study the scripture aren’t content with simply knowing about where Jesus’s was Friday and Sunday.
Great thinkers question where was his spirit and soul on Saturday ? For hundreds of years, brothers and sisters have debated whether Jesus’s soul was in hell or heaven on that Saturday. Men proclaimed two separate mysteries as truth and caused some to question the things we are sure of.
I know the arguments, the scriptures involved, and even lean more one way than the other, but I don’t know. No matter how convincing theories get explained, I don't know that anyone knows. And I don’t want what I don’t know to distract me from what I do know.
I know I never want to experience my life lived without Jesus. Praise God, I know I don’t have to. I know that some people are. I’ve seen the sad eyes of those who haven’t been set free by God, held captive by the unanswerable mysteries we don’t have to know to belong to Him. Mysteries from the past, or the ones we face now, or the ones we may face before Jesus comes back again, aren’t our salvation. It’s the Truth, He died, conquered the grave, and is coming again for those who belong to Him.
I know He called me to tell those that are living without Him about that Friday and Sunday. Lord willing, I’ll do that today and tomorrow. And everyday after that.
Happy Easter.
He Lives!
He Reigns!