That Numb Feeling You Get
Luke 23:55-56 The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
Whenever I go to a funeral – we all do from time to time don’t we – I always think what it must be like for the wife or the husband of the person who’s just died.
Not at the funeral, but when they go home to that empty house, the empty bed, the clothes of their loved one that they have to sort through. That first night and the next day, when the reality, the finality sinks in.
I suspect that’s the feeling that the Disciples were experiencing on the Sabbath morning … and during the day on the Saturday after that first Good Friday. Although to them, back then, there was nothing good about it at all.
The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment. (Luke 23:55-56)
What a strange, sad and disturbing day that Saturday must have been. This Jesus … He’d promised so much. The incredible miracles, the power with which He preached and just those personal little things that they’d experienced with Him over the last few years on the road. Could He really be gone? Really?!
Sure He’d spoken about the fact that He would be crucified, but the last 24 hours were just … unbelievable. The arrest, the trials, the crowds baying for His blood … and then, then up there on Golgotha watching them drive those nails into His hands and feet, watching Him suffer like that.
And now, now He’s dead and gone. This Jesus who promised so much. What happened? What went wrong? It wasn’t supposed to end like this, was it?!
I wonder if you’ve ever felt as though God has deserted you. Have you ever found yourself wondering, asking, crying out, “God where are you? Why have you left me? Why have you failed me?”
It sometimes feels like that doesn’t it? As though either God doesn’t have the time or the ability or the power or the will to step into your life to help you and to hold you. As though God has gone missing in action the way Jesus did, with that sense of loss and finality.
Jesus chose to suffer and die. It didn’t make any sense to those disciples back then and there. But it means everything … everything to you and me here and now. Because without that shocking, appalling loss, there could be no future for you and me. Without that terrible, brutal death, there could be no resurrection … for Jesus, for you, for me.
Hang in there. That day of resurrection, it’s coming. It’s just around the corner. It’s coming.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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