The Darkest Day in History

As I've been going about my day today thinking about Easter Sunday, something just hit me. Today, most of us are preoccupied with preparing for a great day of celebration. This morning I bought all sorts of candy and goodies to stuff into my kids' Easter baskets. A crew of folks from our new Madras campus hosted an egg hunt for the people in their community. All of the finishing touches are being worked out for our 5 Easter services tomorrow. The weather is unbelievable and spring is in the air. Everybody's up. Everybody's excited. Things are great.

But the thought I had was: What must things have been like on Saturday before the first Easter? The followers of Jesus just had their one and only hope shattered to pieces. The Messiah. The one they'd been waiting for for generations. The Son of God sent to save them. And at this very moment 2000 years ago, He's lying in a tomb guarded by soldiers. I'm sure they held onto hope even when He was on the cross. Surely He's just waiting to do another one of His amazing miracles. Surely He won't let them kill Him. Surely He won't let them go so far as to wrap Him in burial cloths. Surely He won't let them put Him in the tomb. Surely He won't let the stone be rolled over the entrance.

But He did. And He's been there all night. He's been there all day. Could this really be happening? Until now, we've tried to hold out hope that all of this could just be a bad dream. But now, the reality is setting in. Maybe Jesus wasn't all we thought He was. Maybe we were being ridiculous to place so much hope in this man.

Compared to the activities you've probably been involved in this weekend, it's hard to imagine how utterly crushed and hopeless the followers of Jesus had to be on this day. I also think it's hard for us to grasp how truly extraordinary Easter was for the hearts of those first followers. Tomorrow's going to be great. We get to celebrate our Savior who walked out of a grave. And it's going to be an awesome day. But not near as awesome as the first one. No wonder they held on to their hope so strongly in the years after Jesus' resurrection. Nothing could compare to that first Easter. That's what I'll be thinking about tomorrow morning as we talk about hope in all 5 of our services. See you guys there!!!