Are you living like it’s Saturday?

[Here is some background on this entry I posted two years ago:

Two years ago on the Saturday before Easter, it was a dark, rainy, gloomy day. My cat Gideon was in late stage kidney disease, and his buddy Rowe wasn’t acting right; he’d fall down and yowl in pain from time to time. I knew something was wrong with him, I just didn’t know what. Then that Saturday before Easter, I found a full cat canine tooth on my kitchen floor. It was Rowe’s…which only kicked up my despair and foreboding to panic level.

It was in that very circumstance I wrote the following blog entry. Now, two years later, it seems as if the whole world is grappling with despair and foreboding. All this on the Saturday before Easter.

I hope this speaks to you:]

Are you living like it’s Saturday?

For most of us, Saturday means this:

Projects. Pastimes. Parties. Plans. Playing.

Rest. Recreation. Recuperation. Recharging.

But once, a couple of thousand years ago, there was a Saturday unlike any other Saturday. That day, like every other Saturday before it and after it, was sandwiched between a Friday and a Sunday. But those two days (as you can imagine) were unlike any other Friday or Sunday before or after.

On that Friday a group of friends witnessed the vile, unjustified arrest of their Friend, a blatantly rigged trial, and a patently predetermined death verdict. They watched helplessly as their Friend was dragged away, flogged, and beaten beyond recognition.

The hope which permeated His every word burned in their own hearts, stoked by the power of His presence. He was the One. He was the Messiah; but here He was now, brutally cut down as they heaved Him high on the crossbeams, slamming His tormented body into place for all to see…to mock, to jeer…

Hope was fading. Joy had withered away. Their Friend, the One who had healed the sick and raised the dead, was gone. His lifeless body was laid in a tomb with a stone covering it so decay could finish its slow work unmolested.

It was Saturday. A numb, raw, gloomy Saturday.

Sunday had not yet arrived.

Now, you and I know what that particular Sunday had in store for His friends…for the world…and for you and me. We know of the pre-dawn rendezvous at the tomb; the rolled-away stone; the discarded burial ointments and herbs when once the strange salutation was spoken, “Why do you seek the Living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen.”

Now, we, like His friends of old, know Him. We have walked with Him and have talked with Him. We know He is risen, He is alive, and because of that, we know that we too are alive in Him.

But today I heard the Lord ask me, “Are you living like it’s Saturday?”

It jolted me. Was I? Was I, a friend of the crucified One, so saddened by losses and weighed down by the perplexities of life, living as if it were only Saturday? Was I living a pre-Sunday life?

I KNOW BETTER.

I had to come to terms with the Truth: It’s not Saturday anymore!

Jesus conquered death. He conquered sin. He conquered pain. He is the Way-Maker when there is no way; He is the Quiet in every storm; He is the Light that overcame darkness—and He is my God. He who crushed the serpent’s head and pulled me out of self-destruction can walk me through torrential winds or crashing waves to the other side—Safely. Unscathed. Strengthened in hope and in faith.

I’ve made up my mind. I refuse to live like it’s Saturday ever again. For me, it’s Sunday now.

Dorothy

“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God…When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” (Colossians 3:1, 4).

© 2018, Dorothy Frick; reposted 2020