Real Despair, Unseen Hope

This must be the greatest day of paradox in all of Passion Week.  It is the forgotten day as nothing is said about it in Scripture.  Yet those who experienced it could never forget it.  Every movement they made, every word they uttered, every thought that passed through their minds was chiseled in the stone of their memories.  Such would stay with them forever as the moments agonized by, one laborious second after another.

It is a day of calm in the streets as a nervous sense of normalcy begins to resume over Jerusalem, at least as much as can be expected.  Yet it is also a bewildering day, even a ghostly one.  How can the people explain the coincidental earthquake and tearing of the temple curtain at the exact moment of Jesus’ death?  How can they explain the unprecedented three hours of darkness?  No eclipse lasts that long and even if they thought it to be one, how ironic that it would occur at the same moment as these other things.

Today is an eerie calm, like that of the hurricane’s eye as it passes over with its skittish and confused puffs of wind.  And it is a deceptive calm.  The religious leaders emerge with a tense glee thinking they have weathered the storm, that the moment of calamity has passed.  Little do they anticipate what will happen once that eye passes over.

That will happen a few hours and in anticipation of that, the demonic world is once again engaged in a flurry of activity.  Satan is marshaling his forces where he thinks they will be of greatest value to try and keep Christ in the grave.  Thus we would remember that on this day, like Wednesday, much is going on in the heavenlies even if it is relatively quiet on earth.

But for the disciples this was the most hopeless day of their lives, hopeless because they did not at all understand the resurrection let alone anticipate it.  “For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead” (John 20:9).  And if we are to truly understand what is going on this day we must see it through this prism—the disciples were not expecting the resurrection, not in the least!

You and I have never studied the Calvary apart from Easter.  We cannot conceive of one without the other.  But for the disciples this day was Calvary before Easter, that brief and hopeless moment when they were adrift in a spiritual fog, not knowing where they were going, when it would lift or what would be on the other side.

For the eleven, the stillness of the day is anything but calming.  While Jesus’ torment is over, theirs has only begun.  No doubt they are exhausted due to a lack of sleep.  How could they sleep when visions of the previous day raced through their minds the moment they shut their eyes?  The silence is deafening as they wrench over their guilt of having abandoned Him.  Peter has wept bitterly over his denials; perhaps he hasn’t stopped.  Perhaps he never will as there is no lack of fuel for a condemning conscience.

It is the Sabbath but this day of rest offered no rest for their souls.  Their torment also extends to the fact that they would most likely be next.  Lest a movement arise over this martyred “Messiah,” the Jews and the Romans both would want to stamp out those who could make it happen.  The disciples could easily be next and they know it.  Which emotion governed them most—guilt or fear?  Perhaps they couldn’t tell themselves.

It is also a day of love and sacrifice.  Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took Jesus’ body down from the cross through their own sorrow and tears.  They were members of the Sanhedrin and their love for Jesus would cost them their positions.  The Jewish records of the era make no mention of these men as being part of their body.  Their names were scrubbed from the record because of their devotion to Jesus.  They gave up their positions with no thought of gain.  They knew what this action would mean for them personally, but they still didn’t comprehend that Jesus would rise again.  There was nothing in it for them to take Jesus’ body down from the cross—only loss.  They did so simply for love’s sake.

For the broader group of disciples, today is equally mystifying and hopeless.  Jesus’ body lies cold and stiff in a silent grave.  How could the Messiah of God die?  How could a week that began so gloriously end in such tragedy?  How could the hope of the Triumphal Entry end in the despair of Calvary?  Did history ever record such a reversal of fortune?

Never before have the people of God known the despair of a day like this.  Not even Adam after his sin knew despair to this level because he had the promise of a Savior.  On this day that promise seems gone.

But just as their forefathers had no idea of what God would do at the Red Sea centuries earlier, so these had no idea what He was about to do now.  More than anything, it is a day of irony as in the shadow of the disciples’ greatest sorrow, their greatest hope is just around the corner.

How often are we able to identify with the disciples in a moment like this?  God does something in our lives that makes no sense whatsoever.  In fact, it seems to work totally opposite of that which is good.  Confusion sets in.  Perhaps guilt does too as we know we haven’t followed Him like we should.  Our minds may be traumatized as we can’t make sense of it all.  Tears are the result, maybe even a flood of them.  Fear of the future captures us and the days crawl by.  Hope seems to be gone.

As the disciples were men with feet of clay, so we are no different.  And if God can work through their weaknesses, then He can do the same though ours.  He has not forgotten our tears any more than He did theirs.  “You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle.  Are they not in Your book?” (Psalm 56:8).

God offers us the same incredible hope in the midst of our despair, one that doesn’t even compare to theirs.  How does He do that?  By calling us to trust Him and to act upon His word.  Let us remember Peter as he points us to this hope—one he knows from his experience of this day—in 2 Peter 1:19, “And so we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.”

Is this hope yours because of your trust in Christ alone to save you?  If not, then come to Him today.