Saturday

Saturday – Day Before Resurrection

I am struggling to find context for this day in my own experiences of death. Every person in the generation preceding me on both my mother’s and father’s side of my family have been swallowed up by death. In my wife’s family there are still three remaining, her mother and an aunt and uncle from her father’s family.

While all of those deaths have hit with varying degrees of grief, two stand out as I sit here thinking and typing. My cousin Darrel, younger than I, died suddenly of a heart attack several years ago. His death preceded both his parent’s death. Nothing I know of predicted his heart attack. It was sudden and very hard for his immediate family. I was asked to preside at his funeral. While an honor, it still was hard since I’d known him his entire life.

The second death that has emerged in my attempt for context for today, was the death of my friend Cliff. He was my best friend as well as one of my wife’s best friends. It was a joy for both of us as he stood as my best man at our wedding almost 46 years ago. He died in an automobile accident a few months after the birth of his daughter in 1978. Fortunately, his wife and daughter survived the accident, but it was a breath-taking blow to hear that news. I still miss him to this day.

None of these experiences offers context to help stand alongside those grieving on this day after Jesus died. Those thoughts we’ve all experienced at the loss of a loved one, (“if only”, I can’t believe this”, “this can’t be true”, “only just yesterday he was here”) are poor echoes of the darkness and grief I believe those men and women were experiencing.

They had been changed by Jesus. They knew physically his touch, the sound of his voice, his smile, his eyes. They loved him. More importantly, they knew he loved them deeply. They had been taught richly of God’s kingdom by his words and actions. He held an authority they had never known from other rabbis. They thought they were going to follow him a long time.

This time after his death had to be nothing but crushing darkness. A darkness that held no light to pierce the confusion, the pain, the loneliness.

Yes, I am sure some remembered Jesus had predicted this would happen. It was a grace of kindness that he did that. I believe it may have softened the blow his death would be, into the realm of “barely tolerable”, but the darkness had to be suffocating.

Were they scattered and alone? Did John sit with Mary in her grief? Was Peter huddled somewhere, curled into a ball of shame? We don’t know.

I do know, I don’t have a good context for the loss they felt. As with my thoughts of yesterday, I think it important to not rush to resurrection. I think it important to sit with these men and women who grieved the loss of their Messiah. They are our forebearers of the salvation we now have.

May we sit with them for a while.