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Mark 15:42-47 (NLT) - This all happened on Friday, the day of preparation, the day before the Sabbath. As evening approached, 43 Joseph of Arimathea took a risk and went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. (Joseph was an honored member of the high council, and he was waiting for the Kingdom of God to come.) 44 Pilate couldn’t believe that Jesus was already dead, so he called for the Roman officer and asked if he had died yet. 45 The officer confirmed that Jesus was dead, so Pilate told Joseph he could have the body. 46 Joseph bought a long sheet of linen cloth. Then he took Jesus’ body down from the cross, wrapped it in the cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone in front of the entrance. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where Jesus’ body was laid.
One of the most overlooked parts of the Easter story is Saturday.
We focus a great deal of attention on Friday and the Crucifixion- with good reason.
We focus a great deal on Sunday and the Resurrection, with good reason.
Very little is said publicly or in the Bible about what Jesus was doing on Saturday.
Saturday was the day In-Between – It is known as Silent Saturday.
~ Max Lucado - God made himself heard on Friday. He tore the curtains of the temple, opened the graves of the dead, rocked the earth, blocked the sun of the sky, and sacrificed the Son of Heaven. Earth heard much of God on Friday.
Nothing on Saturday. Jesus is silent. God is silent. Saturday is silent.
Remember that just before Jesus died, He declared – It is Finished!
The work of Salvation and redemption had been completed.
Just as God rested when He had finished creation Jesus rested from the finished work of the cross.
Saturday is the day after the cross, but before the resurrection. The day when everything feels silent.
The Pharisees were busy sealing the tomb. The Soldiers were busy guarding the tomb; but Jesus was silent. He was resting. He descended into Sheol to set those who had followed Him free.
Ephesians 4:10 (NLT) - And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.
Christ descended from Heaven and became a man. God gave His one and only son to bring us life through His death and resurrection.
Saturday was the day when everything fell silent, it seemed like all hope was gone. It was the day when the people who loved Jesus were left grieving, waiting, wondering if any of His promises were true.
The work that Jesus did on Friday and Sunday was important but just as important was the work that Silent Saturday was doing in His disciples.
Just because it felt hopeless didn’t mean that hope was gone.
God was still working.
While the disciples were weeping, while the world thought that it had won, God was preparing for resurrection.
There is incredible value in the Silent times in our life. While we are called to do, we are also called to be still.
The older I get the more I really like quiet. We all need quiet we all require quiet.
We all need the quiet that allows us to rejuvenate and the type of quiet that allows us to contemplate.
The disciples in the Silence of that Saturday; that Sabbath – were remembering all that Jesus had taught them.
We need quiet to think and to comprehend.
Silent Saturday gives us a time of quiet to really think about all that Jesus work on the cross was about. What His sacrifice really meant.
Quiet is important. As a matter of fact, I have found that in the car I will actually turn down the radio so that I can think and concentrate and focus better.
In stillness there is more focus and greater clarity.
We live in a very noisy society. We always have things that always keep us on – Phones, TV’s, Radios.
Very few people really know how to just sit in silence and stillness.
Many of us have forgotten how to sit in the presence of the Lord and just be silent and just be still. To not talk.
Too often we confuse praying with doing and saying but being in the presence of the Lord also just involves silence.
Silence allows us to really hear what is being said. You really get to know someone in the silent times.
Just because it is quiet doesn’t mean that nothing is happening.
The greatest power moves of God often happen in the silence.
Sometimes in the silence the more serious things are.
I found as a parent that silence was golden in three very powerful ways:
One - just sitting together in the quiet could be very bonding. Some of our best times were when the kids were little and they would just snuggle.
Two – when I was disciplining the kids I found early on that I didn’t need to raise my voice. They discovered that the quieter I became the quicker they better listen.
Third – There were times that people were messing with my children that I would just step in and didn’t need to say much. It was understood that you don’t touch my kids.
On Saturday Jesus was silent– He had said all that needed said on Friday. The message was already sent.
I have found that many times Jesus is silent because He is allowing us to just talk.
There are times, I think, we misunderstand the silence of the Lord. It’s not that He is silent, it is that He is listening. When we talk to God we wind up working many things out while He listens. He speaks without saying a word.
God doesn’t always try to fill the silence. He didn’t on Saturday. It was time to rest.
Quiet is necessary for our peace of mind, it is necessary to think about things and through things. It is necessary to contemplate. It is necessary for rest.
We need to learn to become comfortable with the silence.
God is able to do powerful things in silence.
If you read the Word of God closely you will be surprised to find out how much Salvation and Stillness go hand in hand.
I think that many times we miss out on what God is doing because we don’t get still and silent to notice what God is doing.
Stillness is where we can take in the beauty.
Stillness is where we are able to process life.
Stillness is where we are able to really take in and observe all that God is doing in all of His glory.
We find God, not in the midst of the intensity and busyness, but in the stillness.
I have found that God works through seasons. Including seasons of silence.
Ecclesiastes 3:7 - a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
Seasons of quiet, Seasons of waiting, seasons of stillness.
Silent Saturday was just important as Crucifixion Friday and Resurrection Sunday.
Silent Saturdays. We all have those seasons.
The day between the struggle and the solution; the question and the answer; the offered prayer and the answer of the prayer.
Saturday’s silence is hard. Is God angry? Did I disappoint him?
God knows Jesus is in the tomb, why doesn’t He do something?
Or, in our situations -- God knows our career is struggling, our kids are hurting, our finances are in the pit, our marriage is in a mess.
Why doesn’t He act? What are you supposed to do until He does?
You do what Jesus did. Lie still. Stay silent. Trust God.
After the crucifixion there was a much-needed stillness, after the stillness there is Resurrection!
May you and your Family be filled with the Blessing of the Lord. Know that you are Loved and may you have a wonderful Resurrection Season!
Pastor Marvin & Dawn
Image by Matthias Groeneveld from Pixabay