Sunday is Coming

I have loved history my whole life. When I was preschool age I asked my mom if she had been alive when Abraham Lincoln was president! I am sure she appreciated that. But one of the things I love doing is trying to put myself in the shoes of those who lived in history. Not with the 20/20 hindsight I have now but then what they must have felt knowing just the limited facts they did. I have been thinking a lot about the disciples and women who followed Jesus. What did they feel like on Saturday? Thursday had been a day of preparation and then the wonderful passover feast. Then the horrible events of Friday that had culminated in the death of Jesus. Their friend, teacher, the man they thought was the messiah. They were sure he was. He had done so many wonderful things.
Saturday morning they woke up, or at least got out of bed. Sleep had alluded them. Their eyes puffy, red and dry from crying. The faced the first day of loss. The congregated together in the upper room. Looking around they realized that no one had cleaned up since Thursday. They begin to stack dishes, throw away food that had spoiled. They looked at each other and in hushed whispers asked What do we do now? Where do we go? Do we go back to fishing, tax collecting? Do we go back to the Temple? What exactly happened to the curtain? All day they just did what had to be done. The were in shock and the future looked uncertain and bleak. They went to bed that night without hope, without a future, without joy.
Then they were woken by these mad women! What were they babbling about? He has risen. The hope flooded back. He was telling the truth! He is the Messiah! He appeared to them. He restored broken relationships between he and Peter. He commissioned them. He loved them!
Sunday was full of hope but none of that was possible without the hopelessness of Saturday. If Jesus had not died the resurrection would not have been necessary. If Jesus had not died a horrible, painful, hopeless, joyless death and let the Disciples sit in their hopeless, joyless state, the resurrection would not have been life giving, hope giving or joy giving. 
Without hopelessness in our own lives, hope has no meaning. Without periods of pain and joylessness the beauty of the resurrection would be lost. While death is never easy it brings about new life. Without Saturday, Sunday never comes. We must experience pain to understand the joy Christ brings. We must experience death to sin to understand life everlasting. We must experience Saturday's bleakness to understand Sunday's radiance. You might be living in Saturday but know with out a doubt that Sunday is coming!