The Bible is full of ‘three day stories”[1]:
· Abraham and Isaac’s journey up the mountain
· Joseph’s brothers in jail in Egypt
· the plague of darkness in Egypt
· When the Israelites left Egypt, they traveled three days into the desert before they found water
· Rahab hid the spies for three days
· Jonah in the big fish for three days
· Saul was blinded for three days
· Jesus was in the tomb for three days
· “Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn, that he may heal us; he has stricken, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” (Hosea 6:1-2)
On the third day is when the bad stuff ends. That’s the day we celebrate, and rightly so. But third day stories aren’t clear until the third day. On Day One and Day Two, it’s not yet clear how the story will end. The First day of Third Day story is often a brutal one.
It was the First Day - Crucifixion Friday, or Good Friday - that Jesus died. His followers did not know this was a Third Day story. All they had on that Friday was the First Day. They had seen so many failed messiahs by this point[2]. They did not understand the prophecy that pointed toward Jesus’ resurrection. They were afraid and in despair.
Crucifixion Friday reminds us that Jesus knows what it means that all of creation groans (Romans 8:22) and the land mourns (Jeremiah 12:4). When the prophet Isaiah wrote of the coming Christ, he wrote, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; He was stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” (Isaiah 53:4)
Jesus understands our First Days. His entrance into the human condition showed that God is not a distant, uncaring and cold God. God understands us.
Then there is the Saturday before Sunday. It’s not the day when the tragedy occurred; it’s not the day when Resurrection brings hope and life. It’s that troublesome (and often very long) middle day.
Here’s what the Bible records the followers of Jesus were doing between Crucifixion Friday and Resurrection Sunday. (This is a combination of details as they appear in Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20).
At the rising of the sun, after the Sabbath on the first day of the week, the two Marys and Salome came to the tomb to keep vigil. They brought sweet-smelling spices they had purchased to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus. Along the way, they wondered to themselves how they would roll the heavy stone away from the opening…
[They encounter the Risen Jesus]
They brought this news back to all those who had followed Him and were still mourning and weeping. They recounted for them—and others with them—everything they had experienced. The Lord’s emissaries heard their stories as fiction, a lie; they didn’t believe a word of it until Jesus appeared to them all as they sat at dinner that same evening (Resurrection Sunday).
They were gathered together behind locked doors in fear that some of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were still searching for them. Out of nowhere, Jesus appeared in the center of the room and said, “May each one of you be at peace.”
There’s not a lot of info, but what is there is insightful. What do we see the closest followers of Jesus doing?
· Keeping a vigil of mourning
· Planning how to perfume the body of the dead Messiah
· Hiding in fear
· Disbelieving that Jesus was alive
For the most part, it’s not a great resume builder, really. You would think that the biblical writers might want to put a better spin on what happened here. “As the disciples were praying and rejoicing over Jesus’ impending Resurrection, Mary returned and told them the good news. And they said, “Of course! We knew it all along!” This is one reason, by the way, you can take the biblical writers seriously. They aren’t afraid to show warts and all of even the best people in the story.
No, they were mourning the death of their long awaited Messiah. They thought he was gone. They thought he had failed – and in that failure shown that he was not, after all, the promised deliverer. As far as they knew, he was never coming back.
Crucifixion Fridays are hard, but Silent Saturdays may be even harder.
· Funeral days are hard, but they are at least full of adrenaline and crisis management and we are surrounded by support. But then the next day, when family drifts back home, and friends go back to their routine…that’s when Silent Saturday sets in. The loneliness and the emptiness…
· The trauma of a major accident or surgery or abuse is a lot, but the months or years of recovery – or wondering if you will ever recover – that’s a different kind of hard.
· The divorce, the job loss, the day the prodigal child moves away… all their own kind of hard. They are all days of “death”: death of relationship, death of vocation, death of family unity. All hard. Then there is the time afterward where we don’t know if there will be restoration, or provision, or unity.
It’s hard enough when it involves earthly things. But what about when our relationship with God is best described as a Silent Saturday kind of relationship? What if there is a spiritual loneliness and emptiness, a sense that God is aloof at best and gone at worst. What about the times when the heavens seem empty, and our prayers just seem to drift off into a void? What about the times when God is silent?
ANDREW PETERSON – THE SILENCE OF GOD
It's enough to drive a man crazy, it'll break a man's faith, It's enough to make him wonder, if he's ever been sane, when he's bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod, And the Heaven's only answer is the silence of God.
It'll shake a man's timbers when he loses his heart, when he has to remember what broke him apart. This yoke may be easy but this burden is not, when the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God.
And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they've got, when they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross, then what about the times when even followers get lost? 'Cause we all get lost sometimes…
There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll in the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold. And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a stone, all His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone
And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot, what sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought. So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God, The aching may remain but the breaking does not. The aching may remain but the breaking does not. In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God.
So what do we do with the Silent Saturdays of our lives? I want to offer a number of suggestions not so that we will be immediately aware of God’s presence, but so we can be purposeful and grow from this kind of season of our life.
Be honest with God. The Bible gives us permission to voice our hearts during Silent Saturday. Look at a few of the Psalms:
Psalm 6:2–3 “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul is greatly troubled, but you, O Lord, how long?”
Psalm 13:1–2 “How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?”
Psalm 90:13–14 “Return, O Lord. How long? Have pity on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.”
“I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.” (Job 30:20)
After my dad died, I kept a journal for years and did my best to be honest before God about my anger, fear, grief and depression. Just getting it out was healing, and learning to trust that God could handle it was vital. Years later I was talking to a friend going through a lot who literally looked to the heavens and said, “Why? What is going on? How are you letting this happen? Where are you?” There is biblical precedent for this. N.T. Wright wrote:
At this point the Psalms, the Bible’s own hymnbook, come back into their own, just when some churches seem to have given them up. “Be gracious to me, Lord,” prays the sixth Psalm, “for I am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.” “Why do you stand far off, O Lord?” asks the 10th Psalm plaintively. “Why do you hide yourself in time of trouble?” And so it goes on: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever?” (Psalm 13).
And, all the more terrifying because Jesus himself quoted it in his agony on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22). Yes, these poems often come out into the light by the end, with a fresh sense of God’s presence and hope, not to explain the trouble but to provide reassurance within it.
But sometimes they go the other way. Psalm 89 starts off by celebrating God’s goodness and promises, and then suddenly switches and declares that it’s all gone horribly wrong. And Psalm 88 starts in misery and ends in darkness: “You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness…”
It is part of the Christian vocation not to be able to explain [why all this is happening]—and to lament instead.”
God knows your heart and mind; he already knows your deepest internal struggles. Voice them. Lament is okay. God is big. He can handle it.
2. Keep the vigils
In the spite of the pain of their loss, the Marys did what they had always done, which was part of the ritual of living in Jewish community. What Jewish people believed and what they did in almost every aspect of life were so intertwined that it’s hard to imagine that the vigil was not considered part of what God called them to do. There is something to be said for keeping the faith through an active commitment to obedience and faithfulness. I would like to offer four vigils I believe are helpful.
a. Pursue Church community. Don't forsake gathering together (Hebrews 10:25). The disciples did at least one thing right: they hung together in the midst of their grief. It’s important that we remain connected and not withdraw. In community, others came back and reported their experiences with the Risen Christ. Even in the midst of doubt, there was hope. We stay in community so that we can be challenged, encouraged, and held close. We need to feel the nearness of God’s people when God feels distant. We need the hope that lives in others when our sense of hope is gone. The church is God’s body; you and I are parts of that body. Without it we wither away.
b. Pray and Read Scripture. I don’t know that there is a formula for the best way to do this. There are all kinds of cool ideas about how to read through the Bible or how to pray. I don’t think they are bad; I just don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all kind of approach.
· Listen to or read the Bible.
· Pray alone - or get together with others online.
· Pray for a block of time - or throughout the day.
· Sing. There are theologically rich songs that are good reminders of the hope we find in Jesus.
c. Dive Into Devotionals (podcasts, books, teachings). This is one way to experience the community of the church. It’s also a good way to find clarity about the Scriptures and to hear the testimonies of others. What did they do when they were in the First and Second days of their stories? Biblegateway.com; biblehub.com, preceptaustin.com, The Bible Project, the history of sermons and posts on our facebook page and website and churches all over the world.
d. Practice Obedience to God. One of the greatest dangers we face is giving up and saying to God, “You know what? If I can’t feel your presence, I am going to live as if you’re not there.” The Bible describes the way of obedience as “the path of life” (Psalm 16:11). There is something about faithful obedience that is not just healthy; it is wise and stabilizing. Also, I believe obedience is one of the ways we are conformed to the image of Christ – and in that conforming – as we begin to see what it means to ‘be like Jesus’ - we begin to appreciate the wisdom of the One who guides our life.
I love a song Ashley Cleveland sings called “Don’t Let Me Fall Too Far.” That sounds like an odd request, but I get it. It starts,
“I know the places where the ice is thin,
too many cracks, you could slip right in…
Don’t let me fall too far.”
She finishes with,
“I will hope for the things that I cannot see,
I know you’ll finish what you started in me,
Don’t let me fall too far…”
I think it’s an honest request: I feel like I’m falling off the path; O God, in your strength, steady me and keep me going. Practice obedience. One step in front of the other. When you start to stray on to ice that you know is thin, pray and walk toward the thick ice of life even if you can’t see it at the time.
3. Learn to wait
Psalm 37:7 “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.”
Psalm 27:14 “Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord.”
I’m not good at waiting. I want problem resolution. Give me a task! Traveling last week, we got stuck in hours of traffic backups. I wanted to take some back roads where I could at least be moving. But according to GPS, it was actually slower. Sometimes the fastest way to the right destination is just sitting there for a while. We so often want to be “human doings” that we forget what it it’s like to be “human beings.” It’s okay to have seasons and rhythms of life in which you are simply present with God and others in the midst of uncertainty and doubt.
4. Let the desert point you to the oasis. Jon Bloom wrote in an article entitled, “When God Is Silent”:
Why is water so much more refreshing when we’re really thirsty? … Why is the pursuit of earthly achievement often more enjoyable than the achievement itself? Why do deprivation, adversity, scarcity, and suffering often produce the best character qualities in us while prosperity, ease, and abundance often produce the worst?Deprivation draws out desire… Longing makes us ask, emptiness makes us seek, silence makes us knock (Luke 11:9). Deprivation is in the design of this age…We live in the dim mirror age, not the face-to-face age (1 Corinthians 13:12)… It’s the desert that awakens and sustains desire. It’s the desert that dries up our infatuation with worldliness. And it’s the desert that draws us to the Well of the world to come.
David said his soul longed for God like a deer panting for water. That sounds like deprivation and anticipation. Once again, okay to voice it. If that is our situation – we are desperate for something refreshing and life-giving – let’s not forget to turn to Jesus.
5. Don't confuse what we think is real from what is really real
The followers of Jesus huddled in their homes thought it was over. It wasn’t. They thought God had abandoned them. He hadn’t. It’s important to remember during Silent Saturdays that what we think about God and God’s plans might not be true. What is true is that God may well feel absent, but He is not. God is with us always.
So, why does He feel distant or absent in those times? I don’t know.
· It could be that we are in rebellious sin and we are trying to hide. #adamandeve
· It could be that we are exhausted, wounded, numb.
· It could be that God is allowing deprivation to draw out desire.
· It could be that we are distracted or depressed.
· It could be we have been traumatized by God’s people, and the character of the ambassadors of the King becomes hard to separate from the character of the King himself.
I don’t know. But I know that God is near and faithful and goodno matter what we think is happening or how we feel. The despair of Silent Saturday may last for a time, but joy comes in the morning of Easter Sunday. More on this next Sunday.
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[1] I got this idea from a brilliant teaching called “Saturday: Living Between Crucifixion and Resurrection,” posted by Richmont Graduate Universityon youtube. I don’t know who the speaker was. You can access the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U90EKNZPKCU
[2] http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12416-pseudo-messiahs