Tuesday 21 April 2009

Easter Saturday

Sandwiched right in between the two major events of the Christian faith--Good Friday and Easter--is that unusaul little day called Easter Saturday. The only day when Jesus wasn't around. After all, he was present in creation (see the bit in John re: the word becoming flesh), and he's present again now, and he was present when he walked the earth. But on Easter Saturday, Jesus was elsewhere. What happened on the in between day?

There's not really a whole lot in the Bible to tell us what went on. I guess the disciples were pretty miserable. It was the Sabbath, so nobody did any work or any of that. They moped about, wondered what had happened to make it all go wrong, why Jesus, who they thought was supposed to save the world, had died in such a horrific manner.

However. What you have to surmise is that as when Jesus came back, he'd conquered sin and death, that's what must've happened. The conquering sin came on Good Friday. The conquering death came when he died. Death couldn't keep hold of him. If you've ever read or seen The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it's like how Aslan explains that the willing sacrifice is able to rise again, having taken the place of the other, and the Stone Table is split apart and can never be used again. Jesus died, yes. On Saturday, he was dealing with the power of death. It looked like everything had all gone wrong, looked like the disciples had got the wrong guy, looked like all their hopes had been dashed.

And I guess that's Easter Saturday. A pretty miserable day, all told. Probably why it's not really celebrated. But essential. After all, if Jesus hadn't been dead, he couldn't have said 'been there, done that, sorted it all out for you', could he?

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