The Day before Joy

By Flora Hawksbee

A piece for a day which perhaps deserves more attention...I've written this with suffering friends in mind, particularly friends who feel they are in a "holding pattern" which will never end.

‘Twas the day before Joy when, as pre-arranged,

The Sabbath arrived, like a friend long-estranged,

The faithful obediently welcomed him in,

‘Tho’ familiar rituals left them restless within.

The Friend who they longed for, beloved Son and Brother,

Left a gap at the table, to be filled by no other,

The gnawing of grief displacing their hunger,

The air itself of life had been plundered.

But time ticked on by – the sun set and it rose,

And seemed the dark terror in their hearts to expose.

Hope itself seemed to drift out of sight,

Faith alone the fine thread, clinging on day and night.

And as Sabbath continued, they saw clear as light

Their powerless, defenceless, perpetual plight.

Some raged, some wept, some argued and fought,

Some sat in silence, alone in their thoughts.

To wait and to hope was all they could do,

To obey their dear Lord, as he taught them to,

But nothing made sense, the mission had failed,

Their efforts, their sacrifices, all to no avail.

So the faithful marked Sabbath in anguish and doubt,

While the powerful plotted and rushed about,

Rumours of resurrection to knock on the head,

Measures to secure the death of the dead.

But ‘twas the night before Life, abundant and free,

‘Twas the dark before a sunrise of healing and peace,

‘Twas the promise of a Sabbath eternal, secure,

‘Twas the day before Joy, everlasting and pure.

Reflection:

Have you ever wondered why Jesus rose on the third day, and not on the Sabbath? Jesus Himself repeatedly foretold this, and symbolically the resurrection of the promised King on the first day of the week clearly points to a new beginning. As the King overthrows death, the moment is as significant as the beginning of creation itself – a glorious achievement after which nothing will ever be the same again. But as I reflect on “the gap” of Easter Saturday I can’t help feeling there is something significant here too.

The scriptures say very little specifically about the day in between Jesus’s death and His resurrection. There are just two, contrasting, references.

In Luke’s gospel 23:56 we read of the women amongst Jesus’s followers going home from the tomb to prepare spices and perfumes, but then resting on the Sabbath “in obedience to the commandment”. Jewish tradition is to count a day from sunset to sunset, so sunset on Good Friday was the beginning of the next day, i.e. the Sabbath.

I imagine the followers of Jesus gathering together in Jerusalem for Sabbath, perhaps in the same room where they had shared a meal with Him only the previous night. Since then, they had witnessed the brutal torture and public execution of their dear Friend and Teacher, with whom they had spent the past three years. It is almost impossible to overstate the shock, trauma, grief, fear and confusion in their hearts and minds.

How did religious rituals feel at such a time as this? Each person will have reacted differently. But for them all, the Sabbath provided a structure, a way to spend the day in obedience to God. None of them knew what the next day held. They were in a holding pattern. And the holding pattern was Sabbath – rest. This is significant. The book of Hebrews tells us that the ultimate rest, offered in Christ, is for those who rest from their own work. It is granted not to those who strive for acceptance, but for those who put their faith in the work that Christ has done for them.

In contrast, Matthew’s gospel tells us what the chief priests and Pharisees (the religious elite) were up to on Easter Saturday - arranging with Pilate to secure Jesus’s tomb and place a guard in front of it, to prevent the disciples from stealing Jesus’s body and spreading a tale that He had been raised from the dead (Matthew 27:62-66). Given what we know about the Pharisees and their strict Sabbath laws, it is more than ironic that they are spending this Sabbath busily trying to terminate once and for all the ministry and legacy of the Lord! Obedient rest is clearly taking second place.

So who were the faithful ones on Easter Saturday? Not those striving for control, but those suffering anguished grief, in obedient rest. And it was they, who, in the famous words of C.S. Lewis, were about to be “surprised by Joy”. The cataclysmic experience and emotions of the disciples on Easter Saturday may form part of our own journey of faith also, but let us not be discouraged, for perhaps it is through those Easter Saturday times in our lives – times when we come to the end of ourselves – that God prepares us for the Risen Lord.

Further reading:

Hebrews 3:7 – 4:11

Romans 4:16-5:5

Romans 8:18-27

1 Peter 4:12-13

John 20

Flora was one of the guests on our recent Writing Greenhouse- a short term mentoring project to encourage and equip women to give writing a go.