What might it have been like for the eleven remaining disciples on the Sabbath day following the death of Jesus? Close your eyes and imagine you are one of the eleven. You’re attempting to put the pieces together as you try to understand why Jesus had to die. Take a deep breath. Now open them.
Everyone is disappointed
Everyone.
Everything we believed him to be.
Everything we hoped he might bring to our people. Everything he promised. Everything he taught. All the work of healing and delivering and comforting and forgiving. The prophetic words. The hopeful vision.
It has all come to nothing in just a matter of hours.
We saw him being whipped nearly to death.
After being forcibly exposed and publicly humiliated,
Jesus died.
We saw it with our own eyes.
Where can we possibly go now?
Who can we possibly turn to?
A day has passed
A wealthy man gave us a place inside his family tomb to lay the body.
As we closed the tomb, we didn’t know where to go.
How do we just leave him there?
How could you just leave him there? God!
We believed You sent him.
We believed what he said.
We saw him touch blind people and they began to see.
We watched him tell this crippled man to get up and he began to walk.
We were there when he spoke to this young girl who had died, and he brought her back.
He ate with outcasts.
He touched lepers.
He confronted religious politicians.
He taught us radical forgiveness.
He sacrificed his own life on behalf of all of us!
And for what?!!!
Jesus is dead!
We thought you were the Messiah!
We thought you came to save us from our oppressors!
We thought you came to bring a new kind of kingdom!
To give us a new way of life!
Oh my God!!! What have you done?!!!
Where are you God?!!!
Why did he die?!!!
Why did you have him die?!!!
Oh my God, what have you done???
Sabbath day
It’s Sabbath my God.
We are supposed to pray but we are prayerless?
We are supposed to rest but we are restless.
We are supposed to worship but we are disappointed.
Oh my God, what in the hell are we going to do now?
