03/22/2008

"Easter" has three days. Good Friday...Saturday...and Easter Sunday. Much is made of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but not so much about today, Saturday.

Did God need those extra hours to work His plan of redemption? I think not. Did God find himself "stuck" by the prophesy that the temple would be destroyed and rebuilt in three days? I highly doubt it--after all, He played a pretty significant role in prophesy. So why, I wonder, is there that 'extra' day?

I don't think it was coincidental that three days were chosen to complete the Easter process, but I have been wondering about this Saturday, sandwiched in the middle of defeat and victory, and questioning.

Did You want us to doubt? Did You want us to grieve? Did You want us to wonder if we'd been misled? Or did You want us to believe? Did You want us to watch and wait expectantly. Surely You knew we would disappoint. And perhaps that final, largest failure was significant. We gave up on You. But Sunday is less than 24 hours away!

How many Saturdays have I endured? Dark days where I grasp for what has often been seen clearly, but what is currently covered from my sight. Days where I wait, less sure than I ought to be, for the Promise Keeper to come through...again...even though He has never once failed. Days following some glamorous experience when walls crumble and nothing is as it was...and I wait...or I run...or I mourn. I am unaware that Sunday WILL come. Because Easter is celebrated once a year, but the God of Easter is with us yesterday, today, and forever.

Sometimes He allows Saturday to knock the breath right out of us. It's not fun. But...this is so almost...well, silly. Remember Annie (a childhood favorite of mine, what can I say??)--oh, little theologian:

"The Son'll come out tomorrow (okay, liberty taken on the spelling of Son),
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be SON!
Just thinkin' about tomorrow, clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow....
till there's none!
When I'm stuck with a day that's gray and lonely,
I'll just stick out my chin and grin and say:
Oh, the Son'll come out tomorrow
So you gotta hang on till tomorrow...Come what may.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow! You're only a day away!"