8 Days to Prepare Your Heart for EasterНамуна

Silent Saturday Wasn’t So Silent
By Dr. Joel Muddamalle

You may be facing something so difficult that it seems hopeless, like a closed door or a flat-out rejection.

In this, you wonder if the silence of God is evidence of His absence. Or you may be wrestling with the truth of His goodness.

This is probably how the disciples felt as they watched Jesus die. These feelings must have been their only companion on the day before He rose again from the grave … a day we’ve come to know as “Silent Saturday.”

All they knew was what they had seen: the death of the One they believed was the Messiah. Every minute of silence was a reminder of their hopelessness.

But things are not always what they seem. There’s always an earthly and cosmic reality to everything.

The disciples of Jesus were not the first to feel hopeless in the waiting. There was a faithful servant of God named Job who lost everything. He sat in silent agony, wondering why.

Job knew that death was a reality for everyone. And when a person died, he thought, they would never rise again (Job 14:12).

“When a person dies, will he come back to life? If so, I would wait all the days of my struggle until my relief comes” (Job 14:14, CSB).

What Job questioned, only Jesus could answer.

Jesus came back to life after He died.

Jesus defeated death through death.

Jesus is victorious.

Even when He seems inactive, He’s always working for our good!

If you find yourself waiting silently, doubting God’s activity in what seems to be an echo of divine dormancy … remember that what we see in an earthly context is but a shadow of the cosmic context. For two days, Jesus’ disciples mourned the death of their Messiah. But in a cosmic context, this time was preparation, developing patient endurance, for when they would celebrate His victory on the third day.

The victory of Christ gives us full assurance that the suffering of this sinful world is not the full story. Jesus is always working in our waiting. May our eyes be opened to the cosmic reality of Christ’s victory that we live in today.

Jesus, thank You that we can share with You in Your victory over sin and death! Please open our eyes to what that means for us now and for eternity. In Jesus' Name, Amen.