A Bad Saturday
For many people, Saturdays are good days to relax from a week of hard work. Some sleep in while others attend different kinds of events, from weddings, pre-weddings, family get-togethers, hikes and picnics, etc. The Easter weekend in our part of the world is one of those “long weekends” when we can plan to do the things we rarely have time for during other times of the year. As I thought about this weekend and its significance in the Christian calendar, my thoughts remained stuck on that Saturday after Jesus was put in the tomb donated for him by a rich man called Joseph of Arimathea. In an attempt to Christen that Saturday, my colleague and friend said to me, “We have Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Let’s call the Saturday, a ‘bad’ Saturday.”
How was that Saturday for the disciples? The eleven must have been distraught. Judas had already hanged himself (betrayers’ guilt, which I’d really call hardness of heart, drove him to hang himself). Also, this Saturday was a Sabbath day. Historically, the Sabbath is a central day in the Jewish tradition. Just as in the days of old, it is observed weekly. It is the only Jewish holiday enjoined in the ten commandments, “Honour the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Jews had every kind of ritual to observe to keep the Sabbath day “holy.” The main duty on this day was to worship and study while avoiding work that was considered distractive, including cooking, traveling, buying and selling, ploughing, etc. Incidentally, and Jesus bears witness, pulling a donkey from a well was not “work,” but healing an invalid who had been in his state for thirty-eight years was such a disregard for the holy day! I digress.
The Distraught Disciples
So, I imagined Thomas, Peter, and John on that historical Saturday. I imagined Doubting Thomas lying on his bed after a long day in the Synagogue and thinking to himself, “I knew it. He kept saying he was going, and when I asked him where he was going, he simply said he is the way, the truth and the life…then he mentioned something about the Father...arrrgh!” Peter, at home with his believing wife, was bewildered. One, he was still reeling from the guilt of denying Jesus two nights before. “Maybe I should have just kept away,” He said to his wife. “Na alikuwa ameniwarn. I should have listened.” He’d pace up and down. John, on the other side was trying to be rational and joining the dots and trying to see things from the Lord’s perspective. Alongside his brother James and Peter, he had witnessed the transfiguration and saw the glory of Christ on that mountain. I imagine him writing in his journal, “Goodbye, my friend. If I see you tomorrow, it will be great. If not, salimu Maulana, tutaonana baadaye.”
Perhaps that’s how this holiday feels for you. You probably are going through loss, and death is close to you. Or maybe you have had a difficult start to the year and are feeling discouraged. Maybe it’s not outside but inside. Like an addiction, you have battled for years or a bad attitude such as hatred towards someone who wronged you a while back. There is likely a glimmer of hope, but what is that compared to your reality? It is a dark season for you. Yet everything seems to be moving unperturbed. The people around you seem happy and have it all figured out. I want you to pause and think about the greatest hope there is tomorrow.
The Unexpected
On Sunday morning, when Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome (Joanna), went to anoint the body of Jesus with spices, their greatest worry was not whether they would find him there but who would roll away the stone for them. When they got to the tomb, they found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty except for the linen Jesus had been wrapped in. The different gospel writers capture the aftermath differently, but the message is clear: he is not here; he is risen, do not look for the living among the dead.
Later that day, Jesus appeared to two disciples on the way to Emmaus, and after they figured out that it was him, they told the others about it. Jesus appeared to the eleven who were together in a room that day. In John’s account, however, doubting Thomas was not there. When the disciples saw him, there was no doubt about it. Jesus had been raised from the dead just as he had promised. It could only mean one thing: that this whole thing is true! What joy and fullness were brought to these disciples, who, only a day earlier, were the subject of ridicule and hushed gossip among those who did not believe.
The Ultimate Test of Christian Faith
The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 hinges Christianity entirely on the resurrection. Christianity is a redeeming and reconciling faith. Redeeming dead sinners back to life and reconciling them with God against whom they have sinned. If there is no resurrection, then our faith is futile, and we are still in our sins (for death has won). God’s wrath still hangs above us, and what a pity that is! But if he is alive, then he has obtained all dominion, power, and authority. When Lee Strobel, an investigative journalist, set out to disapprove of the resurrection, nothing prepared him for the evidence there is for it. My favorite of those, as depicted in the book and movie “The Case for Christ,” is when he speaks to a psychiatrist about five hundred people having seen the risen Christ (1 Corinthians 15:6). Arguing that these five hundred people were just having a hallucination, the psychiatrist said to him, “Hallucinations are unique to the individual. If five hundred people have the same hallucination, I’d say it is a bigger miracle than the resurrection.”
Our Response
So, dear friend, if it is Saturday for you, I invite you to look forward to tomorrow. Tomorrow, Christ will conquer death so that you and I may live. Tomorrow, he will be done with suffering in his body so that you and I may be done with sin. Tomorrow, he will burst forth in glorious rays and stand in victory. Sin’s curse will lose its grip on us. But here is even greater news: tomorrow has already come! Just like you don’t get born every year on your birthday, so is Christ not dying and being raised every year. It happened two thousand years ago, so there may be a today for you! Jesus said to doubting Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29).
Happy Easter to you! Remember, Christ is risen, and that is what matters. In the words of DA Carson, “I am not suffering from anything that a good resurrection cannot fix.”
