The Saddest, Most Silent of All Saturdays

Coming up this week are two important days on the Christian calendar, Good Friday and Easter. But little thought is given to the day in between, a day we could call Silent Saturday.

 

Jesus Christ, the one who had performed miracles, including healing the sick and lame, raising the dead, feeding multitudes, walking on water, and teaching radical truths about God, had been crucified. His closest disciples, who had left their comfortable, accustomed lives to follow Him, had lost their leader.

The range of emotions they must have experienced was vast: anger, grief, confusion, disbelief. Guilt would have been another. One of the 12, Judas Iscariot the traitor, who had turned Jesus over to the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities, had taken his own life by hanging from a tree. 

 

But each of the remaining disciples, in his own way, also had betrayed Jesus, whom they had embraced as their Lord. When He was arrested, they all had scattered. Two of the disciples, John and Peter, did follow the procession after the arrest furtively, watching the mock trial proceedings from a distance. Peter, afraid of what would happen if his association with Jesus were exposed, vocally denied Him three times when asked if he was one of Jesus’ disciples.

 

Can you imagine what was going through their minds and hearts on the day after Jesus’ death and burial in a rich man’s tomb? Surely there was no laughter. There might have been quiet tears, but most likely there was wordless despair as their hopes and dreams seemingly lay in shambles. After the horrors of that Friday, with the banging of dagger-sized nails being hammered into flesh, cries of pain and anguish from Jesus and the two criminals crucified on His left and right, and the loud weeping of the women who had followed and served Him, the next day must have been dreadfully silent.

 

The Scriptures tell us Jesus’ most dear followers had gathered together “with doors locked for fear of the Jews” (John 20:19). “What do we do now?” was likely a question repeating in each of their minds. For three years they had literally taken marching orders from Jesus, traveling to various parts of Judea; now the leader of their march had been slain.

 

In the gospels we read nothing specifically about how the disciples spent that Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. The only thing we know for certain is that Pontius Pilate, the Roman leader who had authorized Jesus’ execution, decided to take action to ensure that the body of Christ would be kept secure.

 

“The chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. ‘Sir,’ They said, ‘we remember that while He was alive that deceiver said, “After three days I will rise again.” So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, His disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that He has been raised from the dead. The last deception will be worse than the first.’”

 

Pilate concurred, ordering, “‘Take a guard. Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.’ So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard” (Matthew 27:62-66).

 

Other than that brief, factual report, the Scriptures tell us nothing else about that silent Saturday. Each of the gospel accounts jumps directly from the details of the crucifixion and burial to “the first day of the week” (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16,2, Luke 24:1, John 20:1). So, we’re left to our imaginations as to what was happening in the lives of Peter, John, Andrew, Matthew and the others.

 

Thankfully, as somber and silent as that Sabbath must have been, it was like God pressing the heavenly pause button. Because the next day – Sunday – would be filled with shouts, cries of jubilation and celebration unlike anything ever witnessed in the world before. 

 

In fact, it was while the disciples were huddling behind closed, locked doors that Jesus suddenly appeared to them, declaring, “‘Peace be with you!’ After He said this, He showed them His hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord” (John 20:19-20).

Best of all, that’s not the end of the story. In fact, it’s just the beginning. Which explains why the words from the now-famous sermon by pastor S.M. Lockridge resonate so strongly and loudly today: “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s Coming.”