Easter Saturday, sometimes called Holy Saturday is an ‘in-between day’ for us. Yesterday, Good Friday, we remembered the death of Jesus, perhaps quietly at home, perhaps at Messy Easter, perhaps with Easter reflections at church. As I write this the sun is shining and the world feels hopeful. So maybe you were outside walking in spring sunshine or, like my dad, planting your first crop of potatoes. Dad had found faith in a Strict Baptist fellowship who didn’t ‘celebrate' Good Friday; their emphasis was on resurrection. I used to go to the allotment and help him. Dad did go on our town’s March of Witness though, because he had a heart for mission. He saw this as a way of evangelising. I never joined him on that! It was enough that during the summer months I had to go Sunday evenings, after church, to the beach and sing hymns on the promenade, accompanied by this little organ thing. That was agony enough! My brothers called it ‘mission to the seagulls’!
But today, Easter Eve, is an odd sort of day and has an empty feel about it: suspended between the tragedy of Good Friday and the triumph of Easter Sunday. Mary and the disciples didn’t realise it was an ‘in-between day’ of course. I can only image how they felt. Shocked, grief stricken, frightened, bewildered, hopeless….they didn’t know they were suspended between anything. We know Easter Day comes tomorrow - the tomb will be empty because Christ has risen, but they didn’t.
I will think about them a lot today as has become my custom in recent years. It is hard following a rabbi. As a disciple you want to be just like him, learning everything he knows, doing things his way, going where he goes. And where had Jesus gone? To a cross ….. defeated … or so they thought. And they had such hope in him…..
Let’s be kind about them today and thank God that, apart from John (who is thought died of old age on Patmos), they did all follow him to death because of their faith. Could we be so courageous?