Living in the Gap: A Tribute to Holy Saturday

Lessons from the day we often skip past.

I actually love Easter/Holy Saturday.

Maybe that makes me a bit of a weirdo because at first, looking at the doom and gloom it seems like a strange day to love.

Fun fact: I actually got married on an Easter Saturday (and I could write a whole separate blog post on that).

I think there's something so beautiful about this day in between.

Good Friday was the day of mourning.

Easter Sunday is the day of resurrection and celebration.

But Holy Saturday? It's the bleh day in between.

Because on Saturday, Jesus was still dead.

Today, we live with the knowledge of how the story ends, but they didn't.

That one day would have felt like a year because:

On Saturday, there was silence.

There was doubt.

There was confusion.

There were unanswered questions.

There would have been a lot of disappointment.

And there would have been very little hope.

This isn't how it was supposed to go.

What now?

What does this mean?

Why did this happen?

Where do we go from here?

If he was really God, wouldn't he have...

This is where their faith was tested—the place where what they really felt and believed would have come to the surface.

And I love the Saturday because this is where we spend so much of our lives as believers.

Our lives are punctuated by grieving and rejoicing, but we spend the bulk of our time living in between what we know He said, who we know Him to be, and waiting for the manifestation of the promise.

It's uncomfortable.

It's jarring.

It's quiet.

It often feels hopeless.

It's stressful.

It's painful.

It's lonely.

But it's the holy tension between the now and the not yet.

Holy Saturday reminds me that the deafening silence is part of the process. It serves a purpose.

If, and only if, we will sit through the discomfort of current unknowns while fixing our eyes on the ultimate "known," we will find that:

Yes, today we don't have the answers.

Today it hurts.

Today the future looks bleak.

Today the pain is raw and fresh.

Today we have doubts.

Today we may be unsure about what He said,

about what we believe,

and if He'll come through.

But tomorrow?

Tomorrow He will rise,

and the empty tomb will silence all the noise

and answer every question.

His nail-pierced hands will be a balm to all our wounds,

and His restored body will reassure every doubt.

So when you’re in a gap that feels unending and the days blur into weeks that blur into months remember:

Because He lives, we can face tomorrow.

Because He lives, all fear is gone.

And because we know He holds the future,

life is worth the living

just because He lives.