Easter Devotion Day 6

Have you ever lost something so important to you that you would have done anything just to get it back? The blanket or stuffed animal you carried with you everywhere you went when you were a child? A piece of jewelry someone special gave to you? A family heirloom that might not look like much but means the world to you? Your phone?

Remember how desperate you were to find it? Normally, whenever we lose something like that, we experieince a range of thoughts and feelings. We try to convince ourselves it's not lost at all as we diligently search everywhere we can thing to look. When our searching proves fruitless, we get more and more frustrated, even angry at our lack of success. We try to make deals with anyone around us who might help. We might even make a bargain with God if somehow what we're looking for will all of a sudden reappear. We get sad and upset, and perhaps we cry or sit around moping, not knowing what to do next. At some point, we resign ourselves to the fact that what we seek is lost to us, quite possibly forever, and we're left wondering just how to move on. 

All those thoughts and feelings? That's what we call grief. The more important something is to us, or the more we love it, the deeper we feel grief. That becomes even more true when what we've lost is something, or rather someone we love. A pet. A friend. A family member. 

Whenever we experience a loss like that, we come to intimately know the feeling that takes up residence deep down in our hearts, a feeling that is both empty and heavy. When we step out our doors, that feeling leaves us dumb-struck that the world around us still spins on its axis, and people can still go about their everyday lives. 

That's the same feeling Jesus' followers woke up with the day after Jesus' death. 

Read John 19:38-42. That evening before, Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate, the Roman governor, and asked if he could bury Jesus' body. Joseph was part of the group of religious leaders who had brought Jesus to trial, but he was secretly a follower of Christ and didn't agree with what they were doing to Him. He was joined by Nicodemus, another religious leader who had visited Jesus earlier in His ministry. They packed Jesus' body with ointments and spices in honor and to fight the indignities of decomposition. They then wrapped the body and placed it in a tomb in a garden where no other body has been laid. They had to do this fairly quickly because the Jewish Sabbath began at sundown on Friday, and burials were forbidden on the Sabbath. 

Imagine, then, what it was like for them that next day, the Sabbath, a day of rest. It brings to mind everyone staying in their homes, lounging about, perhaps spending some time in quiet prayer. We might picture empty streets and shuttered shops. But that wasn't the case. 

Remember, that day was no ordinary Sabbath. It was the one following the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the city of Jerusalem was bursting at the seams with people in town for the celebration. 

On that Sabbath day, many of them would have gone to the Temple to worship. There would have been a hustle and bustle about the streets. A constant din of noise would have been heard throughout the city, drowning out any hope for quiet. There would have been songs. There would have been laughter. There would have been children playing. And through this all, Jesus' followers would have been grieving, wondering how the world could go on when its creator lay in a grave. 

For any who would have managed to overcome their grief or even seek some relief from it by visiting the Temple for themselves, they would have been greeted by another sound; the bleating of lambs offered for sacrifice. That must have robbed them of any relief sonce they alone knew that the true Lamb of God had already been sacrificed just hours before, and there was no longer any need for others. 

On that Saturday, they must not have been able to know any joy during their grief, but that would have been the last Saturday after Good Friday for that to be true. On the very next day, they'd know joy like never beofre, and it's the same joy we all can know today. 

Something to think about:

1. As a follower of Jesus, how do you think you would have felt on the Saturday after Jesus' death while He lay buried in the tomb?

2. What does it mean for Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice?

3. How does our faith in Jesus enable us to have joy at all times, even during deep grief?

Content from "Alive Again" by YM360