Surviving Saturday.

In the calendar of Easter week, have you noticed that Saturday is the forgotten day?

No, me neither.  Not til this morning.  I've been sitting on my couch listening to the rain on the roof, spending some time in the word ... and it's Saturday.  All this week, it seems that we journey through those events in the life of Christ.  We have Maunday Thursday services and Good Friday services.  We celebrate Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday ... and then there's Saturday, tucked in there in the middle. 

The Friday I get.  The cross.  The Good Friday that seems anything but ...

And Sunday I look forward to.  The triumph and the celebration.  Woohooo!  He's alive!  I get this.

And yesterday, FB statuses reminded us over and over.  It's Friday ... but Sunday's coming. 

And it completely skips over this piece.  This missing piece.

SO, Friday is gutwrenching.  Even had you seen it coming, it was still a sucker punch to your faith.  It's the day you get the cancer diagnosis, the day there's no longer a heartbeat on the ultrasound, the day your lose your job, the day you bury your loved one, the day your spouse says "I'm done" ... it's that day. 

How do you get up and go on the next morning?  That's where Jesus' disciples were that Saturday morning.  That's where his family was.  Waking up in the haze of, is this really real?  Did that just really happen?  The disciples had run, hidden, denied.  Yes, had they had the time to think through it, they had all the pieces to know He had told them this would all happen.  But who really thinks logically when your heart has just been broken into a million pieces?  No one was chanting, It's Friday, but Sunday's coming!!

So, Saturday leaves us hanging.  Leaves us somewhere between where we are and where we want to be.  It leaves us numb.  It leaves us questioning.  It leaves us trying to muster enough hope to believe this is not the end. 

If we go back to the Israelites.  It leaves us waiting in the wilderness.  The wilderness where God works on our heart.  The wilderness where God changes us.  The wilderness where we question and wonder and doubt.  Where we cry out and ache and long for something more, something else. 

It was NOT a day of quiet reflection.  It was not a day of preparation for the celebration.  It was a day of mourning, a day of wondering, questioning, and waiting.

I just prayed for a few friends who are in that place today.  Who don't know how God's going to provide for their Friday news. Whose needs seem greater than God's provision right now.  Who have lost count of their days in the wilderness and do not know when their "Sunday" is coming. 

Saturday is not a bad place to be.  But it is also not an easy place to be.  I've learned from the Exodus study that God is there.  He is there in so many ways ... He parted the Red Sea, He guided them with clouds and fire, He provided manna and quail.  He heard.  He gave them water.  Their clothes never wore out.  He did not leave them there.  And He has not left us here. 

Remember God has a very different perspective on our life than we do right now.  GOD was the one who knew It's Friday, but Sunday's coming.  And He knows the same today.  The disciples faced Saturday morning grief-striken and shell-shocked, just as many of us do.  They prayed and expected and hoped, just like we do.  And those days of waiting in the wilderness bring so much more sweetness to that Sunday morning where we see the longawaited provision.  But it doesn't make the waiting any more easy.

So, I'll listen to the rain on this lazy Saturday morning and lift up a few more cries to the God who sees tomorrow. 

Weeping may last through the night,
but joy comes with the morning.

Pete Wilson at CrossPoint Church in Nashville has a beautiful perspective on Saturday here.