Holy Saturday

The day after Jesus was crucified and laid in the tomb, his disciples were very sad. All of their hope for Jesus as King, as the one who would save us, were seemingly gone. And their best friend was dead, killed so cruelly, though he was innocent.

Peter was probably having the hardest time. He had denied that he even knew Jesus, and the third time he denied him, Jesus looked at him sadly, right in the eye, so full of love, and yet Peter was so ashamed of himself, he had run away. The disciples were all afraid, and were hiding. They thought maybe the same thing would happen to them, too, if the Jews hated Jesus so much.

Today, on "Holy Saturday," many people stay up late at night and attend church together, waiting for the dawn, waiting to celebrate Jesus' resurrection, feeling the anticipation, feeling the sadness that the disciples must have felt, feeling our own anticipation of Jesus' return when he comes again in power.
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Jesus, we are like your friends: we don't understand your plans very well, and we are afraid. Thank you for coming to us, finding us, in the places where we hide... we are waiting for you. We find it hard to believe your promises sometimes, and hard to have faith that the crazy world around us is under your control. Thank you that you will return again to judge everyone and everything rightly, to make everything right.