THAT Saturday

It's the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday... 

I can only imagine what the disciples were thinking.  The Lord is gone. Dead.  Killed by the rulers and the will of the crowd who would choose a murderer named Barabbas over their Lord:  The Holy One of God.

We do get some insight from two of the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. This account takes place after the resurrection, but explains how they were feeling since the crucifixion.  We are told that Jesus came up and walked along with them, but they didn't know it was Him.  They tell Him all that happened:

  
13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him.

17 He asked them, “ What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

19 “What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

It's easy in hindsight to scoff at the disciples inability to believe, now that we have the full and complete canon of scripture and know what happens on that amazing third day.  But what about when things don't go the way we think they should in our own life?  When it seems so very dark, like that Sabbath day between Christ's death and resurrection?  How do we react then?  When someone we love dies before (what we consider to be) their time?  When someone we love is battling a sickness we don't think they should have to face?  When someone loses their job and livelihood? Their home?

Can we say that we believe even in the midst of hard times?  I pray so!


My favorite songwriting/singing couple, Andy Gullahorn and Jill Phillips have a song that speaks to this...  I'm so happy that they've each released it on their own individual albums, because there's something special about hearing it in both of their voices.  I highly recommend both of these albums!



Album: The Good Things (2008), Jill Phillips 
            The Law of Gravity (2009), Andy Gullahorn 
 
Resurrection 

My good friend Paul was lying in the backseat of a station wagon
Headed to New Mexico
Somewhere in the middle of the night the driver fell asleep
And hit the wall beside the road
My friend went through the window like a bullet through the glass
Dead before he ever hit the ground

Oh I believe though its hard sometimes
You are the resurrection and the life

Jody is a queen reigning prone upon a couch
For the past few years of numbered days
Because the virus in her body and the cancer in her brain
Are buying up the real estate
The medicine they give her trades nightmares for her dreams
Of memories too tragic to describe

Oh I believe though its hard sometimes
You are the resurrection and the life

I know the words of life to come are true
But sometimes they feel like salt upon the wound
When I’m asking in these moments where are you
Where are you?

Sometimes its like Lazarus,
You come to roll the stone away
And watch him walk back out alive
Sometimes its like my good friend Paul, breathless on the interstate
Mother weeping at his side
Either way its something I will never understand
But I trust enough to take you at your word

So I believe though its hard sometimes
You are the resurrection and the life
 
written by Andy Gullahorn 
©2008 The Gullahorns Music (ASCAP)