Holy Saturday

The scent of spices, a fragrant offering and aroma, lifted into the air. The women (who had come with Jesus from Galilee) came to the tomb carrying the gravity of their grief alongside their gifts (Luke 23:54-56). They are the ones with the perfumes, the ones ready to prepare the body of Christ.

They are the ones who, just hours before, were watching and waiting. Our Holy Saturday was simply their Sabbath—a day of rest, a time of waiting before returning to the work still needing to be done. Sundown to sundown, they wait. Then, on the first day of the week, like the sun lifting up from the dark of night into a new day, they rise. 

These women, friends of Jesus, make their way to stand before that borrowed boulder, only to find that it—along with the body of the Lord Jesus—is no longer there. This moment with this missing boulder and this missing body—is it awful, or is it awe-filled? What happened to His body, dead and deprived of breath? What about that stone, sealed and secure (Matthew 27:65–66)?

This is not the work of any person, no. This is the work of prophecy (Isaiah 53:9). It is prophecy which gives meaning to this moment, calling all who are watching—including the women who were with Jesus in Galilee and us—to wring awe out of this awful situation.

There is no stone that could have held strong that closed tomb. There is no linen that could have held down that laid body. There is no human hand that could have prepared enough to steal (Matthew 27:62-64) His buried body, broken for us. For, though His grave was foretold (Isaiah 53:9), so was His glory (Isaiah 53:12). His resurrection—and our redemption—held secure long before the Pharisees persuaded Pilate to set a seal on the stone of Jesus’s tomb.

Our salvation secure, our resurrection sure. Not by works, not by our wanting or willing, but by His power and His plan—in and through His faithful hand (Isaiah 53:10). His grave held death while all hearts held hope. Their Sabbath, now our Holy Saturday, is a waiting—a reckless retirement of our good works for a relentless relying on the Word.

And what, now, of our bodies, broken and burdened? What of this world, weary and war-torn, ever waiting for death to die, for light to come, and for Christ to rise?

In the gravity of our own grief, our own graves—our sin and sickness and seemingly powerless Saturdays—we look to the Christ who came, is coming, and will come—no stone too heavy for His nail-pierced hands to roll away.