Silent Saturday? Not Quite…

I sometimes wonder what the silence of Saturday after the crucifixion on Friday meant to those first followers of Jesus. All they knew was what they saw. The death of the one they believed was the Messiah. The sudden end of any hope of liberation from Rome was snatched away. On Friday, their symbol of hope; Jesus was raised on a cross. Jesus hung visibly in front of the world to remind every enemy of Rome that this was the promised end of every rebellion.

For those first disciples of Jesus, it seemed like Jesus joined a long list of promising liberators who all seemed to find a common end to their story – the cross. Then came the silence of Saturday.

Every minute of silence was a reminder that they were still hopeless. Or, were they?

The challenge of "Silent Saturday" is that we often view the silence from an earthly context, but that is never the full picture. The people of God longed for a human King who would liberate them. Not much different from their ancestors who looked to the …