Longing Toward Sunday

I can't imagine what the disciples were feeling on Saturday after the violent death of Jesus that they had witnessed.

We know what happened next so can we really fathom what was going on for them? They didn't know that Sunday was coming.

I imagine them huddled together behind locked doors. Small groups with whispered questions, anguish, and the silence of disbelief. I imagine them with no appetite, hardly able to sleep, in shock. Maybe they would drift off to sleep from time to time only to wake up to the aching again. Possibly, in those few moments between total sleep and wakefulness, possibly in there somewhere they forgot it was true, believed it was a nightmare Maybe they experienced the fleeting relief of thinking that this was just a dream.... but then they would come back to consciousness and be hit with the cold truth. It was not a dream.

We don't want to linger here. We like to wear our crosses empty.

But Friday's executions were reality. Saturday's silent empitness, it's closed-mouthed refusal to explain, was stark, heavy and 100% real.

Bleak, cold, harsh, void, hollow.

Shock, anger, fear, grief, pain.

Saturday had to be lived through.