It is finished.

Christ did what He came to do.

Brutal, blood-stained cross.

Merciful Savior–loving all of His wayward sheep enough to offer Himself as a ransom.

But now it is Saturday and His followers are wandering and wondering. Dismayed and confused, filled with sorrowing.

Death and all of its darkness settling down over faith-filled hearts.

What is there to do but try to block out the stark images of His suffering and shame. What is there to do but wait. Try to remember all that He said. Try to recall all the glory of His power.

And why is it so hard to remember when the shadows are deepening?

Hard to remember that Sunday is coming.

They couldn’t feel that resurrection power humming against the stone.

Our waiting is not the same. We celebrate with great joy the rolling away of the rock, the defeat of death. We read the words they could not remember, and we tell the narrative again and again.

Christ is risen.

Oh, how it changes the end of the story!

But here we are in the middle. Waiting. Death and its shadows more real to us some days than truth, more real than the coming glory.

What is there to do but wait and remember all that He said.

What is there to do but recall the glory of His power.

And listen.

Can you hear it even in the darkness? In the waiting? In death’s extending shadows?

The sweet song of His enabling grace.

The quiet humming of His resurrection power.

He is risen, as He said.

It changes everything.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 Peter 1:3

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-26