Holy Saturday: The Wrong Place
Whenever we have a conference at the Ramp, it’s easy to lose track of time. So much happens in such a condensed time period that days can feel like weeks. For example, when the conference ends on Saturday night, the message on Friday night seems like it was preached a week ago–not twenty four hours ago. The mind and emotions have covered so much ground that it doesn’t seem possible that so much could have happened in such a short window.
I suspect that on Holy Saturday the disciples had lost track of time, but in a much more acute way. Just two days before, Jesus was washing their feet. That must have seemed like a month ago. A week before, He rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, welcomed with shouts of “Hosanna!” That must have felt like a year ago. The miracles, the parables, the expectation, the joy–it must have all seemed like another lifetime. Their disappointment is captured perfectly by the disciple on the road to Emmaus: “The chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel . . .” (Luke 24:21). Good Friday destroyed their hope, and left them sitting in its ashes.
The grave is the wrong place for Israel’s promised King. According to prophecy, God was supposed to protect Him, sustain Him, and preserve Him from death. Psalm 21:4 declares, “He asked life from You, and You gave it to him–length of days forever and ever.” Psalm 16:10 promises that God will not “allow your Holy One to see corruption.” The grave is the opposite of “corruption” and “length of days forever and ever.”
If the disciples would have recalled one of those bygone miracles, though, it may have preserved their hope, especially if it was the miracle of Lazarus’ resurrection from the dead. When Lazarus was still sick, Jesus promised, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God . . .” (John 11:4). Within the next few verses, Lazarus dies. Momentarily, it looks like Jesus is a liar. However, once Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, His meaning is clear. The sickness would not end in death, but it would certainly go through death. Death would be a part of the story, but not the end of the story.
Once Easter Sunday comes around, the promises from the Psalms are clear. God protects Jesus from death by taking Him through it victorious, not by totally keeping Him from it. To get to the right place of the throne, He must first go through the wrong place of the grave.
You see, Jesus first models for us everything that He commands us to do. In Luke 14, Jesus instructs His disciples, “When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place . . .” (v. 8). Instead, He tells them to “go and sit down in the lowest place” (v. 10). If the lowest place is the wrong place, then the master of the feast will make it right. He will come to you and say, “Friend, go up higher.” What will the result be? “Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you.”
Through His death and burial, Jesus took the lowest place. He “descended into the lower parts of the earth” (Ephesians 4:9). However, the master of the feast refused to leave Him there. On Easter Sunday, God, the Father, looks at Jesus and says, “Friend, go up higher.” Jesus doesn’t stay in the grave, but He comes forth in power to receive glory.
Holy Saturday ought to remind us of God’s rhythm. He allows us to go through hard places, wrong places, unjust places before He brings us into glory. Without the grave there is no resurrection.
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Devotional by Pastor Micah Wood