The disciples were flying high as they celebrated the Passover a few days after Jesus' rock star entrance into Jerusalem. It was a night to remember!
But when they later walked to a garden, things went terribly wrong. Soldiers appeared from the darkness, seized Jesus, and took Him to the home of the high priest for a long night of interrogation. The next morning found Him before the Roman authorities, and before the sun slipped into the darkness, His lifeless body had been carried from a cross to a tomb. It took less than twenty-four hours for everything they'd believed to come crashing down. Jesus wasn't really large and in charge after all: Rome was.
As the sun rose the next morning, it was destined to be the worst day of their lives because it was the day that nothing happened. NOTHING. Their daring to trust Him had utterly altered their lives. Some had walked away from good jobs, others had relocated, and they'd all numbered themselves with the one who was now marked as a threat by the civil and religious authorities. Would there be a price on their heads? Would they be able to find work? Would they have to relocate for the safety of their families? Their hopes had vanished and everything was suddenly on hold. It was that awful in-between day of confusion because they couldn’t make sense of anything.
Yet God was up to something in the silence: Sunday was coming. Women returning from the cemetery at daybreak reported the stone had been rolled from the tomb's entrance and the body was gone! Peter and John ran to the grave and found it as they’d been told. Soundbites of information continued to trickle in throughout the day, and then word began to circulate that the women had both seen and spoken with Jesus. As His closest followers gathered later that night to piece together the fragments, Jesus appeared. He ate and talked with them, and suddenly they found their very ordinary lives intersecting the greatest story ever told.
But there was one who missed the celebration. He'd lost hope because he couldn’t make sense of it all and had sold out for 30 pieces of silver. When Sunday came, Judas wasn't there to enjoy it because he'd ended his life just a few hours earlier.
We love Thursdays and Sundays, but not Saturdays. The perplexity of silence can lead to anxiety and despair, especially when it goes on, and on, and on. We want things figured out, and we want them figured out NOW!
The Apostle Paul was no stranger to perplexity, yet what he says about it has become one of the foundational verses of my life:
…we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing...
(2 Corinthians 4:8)
This is a perplexity without despair that is birthed from a confidence that God is always up to something and can be trusted. Sunday is coming, and His story is still being written.
Just as sure as Saturdays are a part of every week, they’re part of every story. They’re hard, confusing, and not fun. But if we continue to trust the One who always knows exactly what He’s up to, Sunday will bring celebration.
There was a time when Rome thought it was large and in charge, but then Sunday came. Today, two thousand years later, there are more crosses in Rome than in any other city in the world.
God is always up to something, even in the silence of Saturdays.