Paul and I downloaded an App called “Easter Now” that sends
you alerts with the daily and hourly happenings of Jesus during the Passion
week. This brings it all home, I never really thought about what Jesus was
doing each day during this week and it seems He was pretty busy. Passion week begins
with Jesus triumphant entry when He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm
Sunday. On Monday, Jesus went to the
temple, along with His disciples, and drove out the vendors that were making a
marketplace out of God’s house. On
Tuesday, Jesus went back to the temple to teach and He offended the religious
leaders. Wednesday was a quiet day in the gospels and one can only guess what
Jesus may have been doing, I imagine that He continued teaching since He did
not have much time left. Thursday at 6pm (which was technically Friday by the
Jewish calendar) Jesus and His disciples ate the Passover meal then they went
to Gethsemane, so Jesus could pray. The Jewish day started and ended at
twilight (which is 6 pm), so their days were a little different than ours since
we go from midnight to midnight. According to our calendar, Good Friday started
with Jesus betrayal, arrest, flogging, crucifixion and then His body being
placed in the tomb, all by 6 pm. Then there was silence.
Imagine how Jesus’ followers felt after 6 pm on Friday. I’m
sure the time spent from the moment the tomb was sealed until Sunday morning
was full of doubt, turmoil, uncertainty, grief and many other emotions. This reminds
me of how things may go for us today. Life is going along and then tragedy strikes
or a crisis crops up and we are asking God why this happened and then we hear
silence, just like the apostles. I went through this when the company I had
worked for (I was with them for 15 years) reorganized and I was told to move to
another state or I was out of a job. My husband was not working at the time and
I knew that I was not going to relocate so to say that I was stressed out is an
understatement. When I communicated my decision to them, I had a wide range of
emotions including, grief, fear, and uncertainty. How are we going to live? What
will we do now? Will our comfortable lifestyle change? All these questions kept
running through my mind and I would like to say that they were quieted by my
faith, but they were not. I knew in my heart that God would take care of us,
but the fear and uncertainty were screaming louder than my faith. I was having
my day of silence, when I could not hear anything and wasn’t sure what was
next. Fortunately, my silence did not last long because my husband received a
call from a company, the very next day, stating that they were interested in
interviewing him for a position and he started working a short time later. We
never know what is happening behind the scenes with God. It may feel like we are
in silence but really it is God working His plan behind the scenes. I know that I was so fearful about our situation
(because I am a control freak) that I was drowning out any kind of reassurance
that God was trying to give me.
On Sunday, the disciples received the answer to all the
questions that were running through their minds because the tomb was empty. It
took some of them longer than others for the fear and uncertainty to calm
inside, but they all eventually came out of their silence. We can trust that
God will do what He says He will do and that is enough during our times of trouble.
Romans 8:32 NASB
He who did not spare
His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him
freely give us all things?
Happy Easter All!!
