What were they waiting for?

The day following Christ's crucifixion was divinely appointed to be a Sabbath day. In ancient Israel this meant a complete cessation of all work and most activities. This also meant that on this fateful Saturday morning, the women who had been following Jesus felt the tug of responsibility competing with their faithful observance of the Sabbath. What their hearts really yearned to do was do the last form of service they could for their Master-- prepare his broken body tenderly and carefully for burial. The night before, a rich man and follower of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, took Jesus' body to his own tomb for burial, where he was hastily anointed before sundown. But the body still required more formal burial preparations.

Imagine the frustration of wanting and needing to attend to something important, only to be forced to do absolutely nothing all day. What filled their hours that fateful Sabbath?

On top of that gnawing urge to "do" was an undercurrent of utter grief. The Lord they loved and served was dead. The One they called Messiah, the One they believed would save them, had died, just like any mere mortal. The miracles, the impassioned teachings... were they all for nothing now? All they had believed in seemed lost. How, now, would salvation come? 

What were they waiting for, now?

We today have the privilege of knowing how all of this turns out. But those ladies then did not know that the next morning their Lord would rise again and conquer death forever. I imagine, mingled with their grief, were doubts aplenty. Had Jesus really been the Messiah they all thought Him to be? If so, how could he have died?

What were they waiting for?

I wonder if some of us are in that same confusing grief-and-doubted-filled darkness that those women experienced that Sabbath. Life just doesn't make sense any more. We see no way out. Hope has been lost. Our hearts are completely broken. There simply is no light at the end of this tunnel. What, we wonder, is God doing?

And as we wait today for the Lord to rise tomorrow, what are we waiting for? What fills our hours as we pass this dark time? Will we hope beyond all hope that a miracle could still come?

When the coming of Jesus the Messiah was foretold, he was called Immanuel, "God with us". We should remember that he never stopped being "God with us", even in his death, and later (after his resurrection) when he ascended into heaven. For immediately upon his resurrection, he promised his disciples, and all who would follow, "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:20). When the Holy Spirit fell on believers 40 days later at Pentecost, this sealed the promise. And it seals us who believe today.

For me, I wait for the triumphant stomp over death that will come in the morning. The stomp that caused an earthquake and rolled the stone back from the tomb. And what came forth? God with us! Amen!