Saturday - Day of Confusion

Everyone knows the name Charlton Heston the Hollywood actor who is now the official spokesperson of the National Rifle Association in the United States. Heston is best known for his work as the leading character in two epic movies that had Biblical themes: The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur. In fact, I cannot read the book of Exodus without imagining that Moses probably looked a lot like Charlton Heston!

Several years ago, Charlton Heston was interviewed on the Merv Griffin show. In the interview, Griffin asked him a question that many of us may have wanted to ask him, “Has your spiritual outlook changed in any way because of these two movies?”

Charlton Heston thought for a moment and then he replied, “Well, Merv, I guess I’d have to say that you cannot walk barefoot down Mount Sinai and be the same person you were when you went up.”

In a similar way, you cannot walk with Jesus through the Week that Changed History and be the same person you were when you started out. There is so much about the Easter story that is striking, arresting, even shocking.

In fact, reading the biblical account of Easter is a lot like doing a home wiring project without turning the electricity off. Every now and then, when you’re least expecting it, you’ll get a powerful jolt.

Each time I read the Easter story, I see something that I hadn’t seen before… something surprising, something intriguing, something convicting. A hurricane of events happen that week: we go from a tumultuous parade, to a tense face-off in the Temple, to a quiet dinner party with friends. We find ourselves in the humble house of Simon the Leper, then in the ornate palace of the high priest; from a beautiful olive grove to a barren place of execution. There are tender moments and terrifying.

And through it all, Jesus moves calmly and resolutely. He is the eye of peace in the middle of the hurricane.

Over the past several Sundays, we have looked at the events of each succeeding day of that incredible week. We have considered the spiritual issues that God has placed before us and have tried to ask “What is God saying to me in the events of this day?”

Last week, we looked at what took place on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, as did millions of Christians around the world. But this week we want to come back for one more visit to the Week that Changed History. Call it an epilogue. Call it a postscript.

Because there’s one day that we’ve missed—the day that nobody ever talks about—Easter Saturday. I myself have never preached on the events of this day. For that matter, I have never heard a sermon preached on the subject of what took place on Easter Saturday.

But it occurs to me that the issues that are raised on this one day of Easter week are incredibly significant to us today. Because the issues of Easter Saturday are strikingly similar to issues that often arise in our lives today as followers of Christ.

For Jesus’ little band of disciples back in 30 AD, Easter Saturday was not a good day! It was a day of confusion; a day of disillusionment; a day full of questions without answers.

It seemed to be a day when God was silent; a day of defeat. The wonderful time that they had had with Jesus of Nazareth was over and done with. He was dead, and all that was left for them to do was to embalm his body. Not a very happy day for them!

By contrast, Easter Saturday was a good day for Jesus’ enemies. Apparently, they had won, and they were busy making doubly sure that they had won. They had gotten what they wanted. They had eliminated Jesus. For them, it was a good day.

Let’s look at the activities of each of these parties on Easter Saturday. Turn in your Bible to Matthew 27:57…

As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.

Luke, in his Gospel (23:55), tells us that…

The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

So what were the followers of Jesus doing on Saturday? Well, let’s go back to what happened on Friday evening before sundown. The Gospels tell us that Jesus died at approximately 3:00 p.m. Friday afternoon.

Joseph of Arimithea was a prominent member of the Jewish Ruling Council, that body of seventy respected elders known as the Sanhedrin. This was the council, remember, that had opposed Jesus, had accused him of blasphemy, and had turned him over to Pilate to be condemned to death.

But Joseph had not voted with the majority in that decision. He had not consented to their verdict because, as John tells us, Joseph himself was a secret follower of Jesus.

And he was not the only one on the Sanhedrin. There was another man on the council, Nicodemus, who was also a follower of Jesus. This was the same man who came for an interview with Jesus at night in John 3—the man to whom Jesus said “You must be born again.”

These two prominent men, risking their own careers and reputations, came to Pilate on Friday afternoon and asked for custody of Jesus body. And Pilate released the body into their care.

Now the Sabbath was soon to begin. Remember in Jewish practice, the day begins at sundown. So there were only, at best, a couple more hours of daylight left, which meant that Joseph and Nicodemus could not take the time to fully embalm Jesus’ body. So they wrapped it in a long linen cloth, anointing it with a mixture of myrrh and aloes which Nicodemus had supplied, and placed it in a brand new, never-before-used garden tomb which belonged to Joseph.

As they did this, they were watched by the women, who, as Luke tells us, intended to come back on Sunday—the day after the Sabbath—and complete the embalming process. Luke tells us that the women then went home on Friday evening and prepared spices and perfumes for that purpose. And then very early on Sunday morning, they took those spices to the tomb. And as they went they wondered “Who is going to roll away that heavy stone so that we can gain entrance to the tomb?”

So—Jesus’ followers are engaged in what we would call today funeral arrangements. They are grieving the loss of their beloved friend and leader and doing what they can to give him a decent burial.

But it is interesting to note that, in all of these burial arrangements, none of Jesus’ closest followers are mentioned. Peter, James, John—none of the Twelve are named. Where are they? Well, they must be somewhere nearby, because on Sunday, we find that they are still in Jerusalem. But they are laying low. They are in hiding. As the men most closely identified with a man who has just been executed for religious blasphemy and political sedition, they obviously felt that they were in very real danger of being arrested and condemned themselves.

So in answer to the question: What are Jesus’ followers doing on Saturday?

• Some of them are making plans to finalize the burial arrangements of their leader.

• Some of them are hiding in fear.

• And all of them, as we read in Luke 23:56, are observing the Sabbath commandment of the Old Testament law—something that, as Jews, they have done all their lives.

  Now this is interesting because even though Jesus had told them as recently as Thursday night that he was bringing in a new covenant, for them on Easter Saturday, the old covenant is still very much in place. Spiritually speaking, nothing has changed.

This certainly doesn’t look like a very promising way to begin a revolutionary new movement to change the whole world. In fact, at this point, it doesn’t look as though Jesus’ life has made very much of a lasting difference in their lives. He’s gone now, and they are on their own, with their grief and fear and loneliness. They are defeated, disappointed, perhaps disillusioned. For them, Saturday feels more like an ending than a beginning.

And maybe you’ve been at places like that in your Christian life. God seems as though he is a million miles away, leaving you alone with the question “What do I do now? How am I going to I cope with this empty, intimidating, fearful new set of circumstances?”

At times like that, it helps to remember that the silence of God is always a prelude to the blessing of God.

Think of Abraham. God gave him the promise that he and Sarah were to have a child—a child in whom the promises of God would be fulfilled. Promises of joy and hope and great blessing. And then years go by with nothing. Nothing but silence. Abraham and Sarah grow older and older. Sarah’s womb grows deader and deader. Sixty years of age. Seventy years of age. Eighty. Thoughts of maternity are long gone. Still, nothing but silence. Abraham is saying tohimself “I guess I must have got it wrong. Maybe God was playing a trick on me?”

And then, God shows up.

Think about the period of Jewish history following the book of Malachi. God wasn’t talking to his people—he sent no more prophets to them. Those were some of the most horrendous years for the Jews. Years of oppression. Years of persecution. Years of being hounded and hated and harried. And nothing but silence from God. A hundred years. Two hundred. Three hundred. Four hundred.

And then God shows up—in person.

Think of Mary and Martha. Their brother Lazarus is sick, sick unto death. So they send word to Jesus: “Lord, the one you love is sick.” In other words, “Jesus, please do something!” And then nothing. No reply. For one day, two days. Lazarus grows sicker and sicker. The sisters are getting more and more desperate. Finally, Lazarus dies. And still no word from Jesus.

So they bury him. They weep for him. Lazarus is in the tomb. One day goes by. Two days. Three days. All hope is gone. The silence is deafening.

But on the fourth day, when the corpse of Lazarus is starting to rot, Jesus shows up. And that changes everything.

If you are living through a period of silence right now, and it looks as though all hope is gone, just remember that the silence of God is but a prelude to the blessing of God.

On Easter Saturday, the followers of Jesus didn’t realize it but they were less than 24 hours away from the most stupendous event in human history—the greatest thing that would ever happen to them. So never give up hope that God will show up!

Well, what were Jesus’ enemies doing on Saturday? Let’s look again at Matthew 27:62…

The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”

“Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

Seems to me that Jesus’ enemies were much more active on Saturday than his followers were! In fact, they were so busy that they probably came pretty close to breaking the Sabbath! But they got a lot accomplished.

They were obviously worried about the tomb turning up empty, so they petitioned the Roman governor to put a security detail on the grave. Pilate agreed and put Roman soldiers at their disposal. These were the crack troops of the Tenth Roman Legion, not just some second-rate Jewish temple guards. Nothing but the best to guard this tomb!

And they went farther than that. They put the seal of the Roman governor on the tomb. This would have been a cord set in wax at both ends—and into the soft wax would have been impressed the coat of arms of the Imperial Roman government. Most likely one end of this seal would have been afixed to the stone and the other to the outside wall of the tomb, so that the stone could not be rolled away without breaking the seal.

To break the seal of the Imperial Roman government was a capital offense. The seal denoted that this tomb and its contents were now government property and it was not to be touched or trifled with in any way. Not even Joseph of Arimithea, the actual owner of the tomb could now touch it. It was off limits to everyone.

Incidentally, the women obviously had no inkling that the tomb was now guarded and sealed, or else they would not have risen early on Sunday to go and complete the embalming process. That would have been a waste of time because they would not have been allowed entrance to the tomb, and they would not have dared to break the seal. So Jesus’ disciples were evidently in the dark on all of this, and the enemies of Jesus were several steps ahead of them.

And this is what they were doing on Saturday. They were consolidating their position of strength. They were acting to squelch any attempt by Jesus’ disciples to turn events in a different direction.

You might say that the chief priests and the Pharisees were in a proactive mode, while the followers of Jesus were in a reactive mode. Jesus’ enemies were the ones who were setting the agenda; they were calling the shots. They were in control of events on Easter Saturday.

And that is often how it seems to us today. It often seems as though Satan has the upper hand. It so often looks like the enemies of the Lord are winning. It seems as though they are on the offensive; they have the initiative; they are shaping events.

And we get all concerned about what they are doing, and we fuss and fret and wring our hands and try to figure out what we can do in response, and we forget that the day after Easter Saturday was Resurrection Sunday when God came in and turned the whole situation upside down—or actually right side up!!!

And all the plans, and preparations, and precautions of Jesus’ enemies didn’t even amount to a hill of beans in the face of the resurrection power of Almighty God.

When Jesus rose from the dead, the Bible says that…

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.

That angel sure didn’t hesitate over the fact that there was a Roman seal on that tomb. In fact, as he was sitting on the stone, I kind of picture him twirling that cord around the way that a lifeguard twirls his whistle.

And what about those soldiers—the pride of the Roman Empire—the soldiers that the chief priests and Pharisees were hoping would keep that tomb secure?

The guards were so afraid of the angel that they shook and became like dead men.

How funny is that? They were supposed to be guarding the dead man, but now they’re the ones who look like dead men!

Never underestimate the power of God to change a situation. And it all happened in the blink of an eye. God has power over nature, God has power over circumstances, and God has power over Satan and his forces.

And I think that we need to note here that Jesus’ followers didn’t have any cause-and-effect role in what took place. They weren’t praying that God would do this—it was the very last thing in the world that they were expecting. They didn’t have a team of strategic intercessors praying for the Garden Tomb. They didn’t have a spiritual mapping team out there trying to ascertain where the devil’s strongholds were. They were not proactive in this thing at all. It was all God’s doing. And we need to remember that.

Well, what was Jesus doing on Saturday?

The Bible does not clearly tell us what Jesus was doing in the spirit after his crucifixion and prior to his resurrection.

There are some interesting theories, however. Perhaps you have heard of a document called the Apostles Creed. The Apostles Creed is a very early doctrinal statement of the Christian church which dates back to about the middle of the 2nd century AD. The Apostles Creed states that Jesus went to Hades—the place of the dead—when he died. What was he doing in Hades? Well, this is where it gets interesting.

Remember in Luke 16, Jesus told a parable about a rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus? Lazarus, even though he was a beggar, evidently was a believer. But the rich man was a wicked man.. They both died, and the rich man went to Hades, to a place of torment. But Lazarus, when he died, was carried by angels to a place that is called “Abraham’s side” (KJV - bosom).

In the parable, the rich man looks up and sees Lazarus being comforted, while he is in terrible agony. So he cries out to father Abraham to send old Lazarus over just to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool the rich man’s tongue. But Abraham says “No can do. There’s a great chasm, or gulf fixed between these two places and no one can get across.”

So that parable indicates that there were two compartments in Hades. And before Jesus work on the cross, the souls of believers—we would call them the OT saints—went to the good compartment. They went to Abraham’s side. But the souls of the unbelievers went to the bad compartment, the place of torment.

Now when Jesus died, so the theory goes, in his soul he went to the good compartment of Hades, liberated the souls of all those OT saints and led them to heaven.

And a further permutation of this theory suggests that some of these souls, on their way to heaven, went into the bodies of these OT saints, and these bodies were physically resurrected. Remember, in Matt. 27:52-53, we read that when Jesus died, many holy people were raised from the dead, came out of the tombs, and appeared to many in Jerusalem!

Are there any NT verses which lend support to this theory? Well, you can possibly appeal to Eph. 4:8-10, which talks about Jesus descending into the lower parts of the earth and leading captives in his train, just as a victorious Roman general would do on his return from a successful military expedition. These captives would be the souls of the OT saints.

And some appeal to 1 Peter 3:18-19, where it is said that Jesus, in the spirit, went and preached “to the spirits in prison” who disobeyed long ago in the days of Noah. And the idea here is that these spirits would have been the occupants of the unbelieving compartment of Hades, and that Jesus went and simply announced his victory over sin to them, not so that they could be liberated, but just so that they could know that they were under the judgment of God.

There are a couple of other verses that are sometimes to support this: (if you’re taking notes: Psalm 16:10; 1 Timothy 3:16; and 1 Peter 4:6.)

So what do we make of all of this? Well, it’s all very interesting, but it is all very speculative. Something that I didn’t tell you is that this particular doctrine of Jesus visiting Hades does not show up in the earliest versions of the Apostles Creed. It only shows up in the later versions, which date from the 5th century AD.

And all of these verses which are cited in support of this doctrine are rather ambiguous. They can be validly interpreted other ways.

One of the cardinal rules of biblical theology is that you don’t build doctrines on obscure passages. And this doctrine, if it is true, is not explicitly stated in the Bible. You have to make several assumptions and then tie them all together to form a rather tenuous kind of structure.

So what am I saying? I’m saying that we don’t know exactly what Jesus was up to on Easter Saturday. We do know that his body was buried in the tomb. He was physically dead.

And we do know several significant things that he said on Friday just before he died. He said to the penitent thief “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” Now some people get all excited about that because in the Talmud, it uses the word “paradise” to refer to the righteous compartment of Hades. Fine. But since when do we take our theology from the Talmud?

And did we forget that Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:4 explicitly refers to paradise as being the third heaven—the place where God lives. And Revelation 2:4 refers to the tree of life which is in the paradise of God, and it’s clearly talking about heaven. Sounds to me like Jesus and the penitent thief had their tickets booked through to heaven.

The Gospel writers tell us that Jesus was hung on the cross at 9:00 a.m. And then they tell us that at noon, a mysterious darkness came over the land and lasted for three hours.

And then at the height of that darkness, at 3 o’clock, Jesus cried out in anguish “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This was the climax of the crucifixion when Jesus became our sin-bearer, and his fellowship with God the Father was cut off. At that moment, in a way that we cannot fully understand, the communion of Jesus’ spirit with God’s spirit was broken and he experienced what it was to be separated from God..

And then, remember, he said “It is finished”. In the Greek that is one word: “tetelestai”, meaning the price has been paid in full. His work was now done and there wasn’t anything more that he needed to do.

And finally, the very last thing that he said before he died was “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”, which seems to me rather odd for him to say if he were now going to Hades.

I believe that it is best to understand that Jesus’ soul was with the Father on Easter Saturday. His work of atonement was done. He had accomplished his mission. He had done everything the Father had sent him to do. And now he was resting, even as God rested on the seventh day after his work of creation was done.

And in a similar way, when I find myself in a situation of confusion and distress; a situation of apparent defeat, a place where God seems to be absent—an Easter Saturday kind of situation—I need to rest by faith in the presence of God and in the sovereign control of God over the events of my life.

We have victory in Jesus. But that victory, today, can only be seen with the eyes of faith. On Resurrection Day, we will see the victory with our own eyes. But on Easter Saturday, the day in which we now live, we can only see that victory by faith.

There once was a man who was a big football fan. He lived in Hawaii, but he rooted for the Washington Redskins. Back in their glory years, the Redskins often appeared on Monday Night Football. Now in Hawaii, Monday Night Football is a delayed telecast because of the difference in the time zones.

A game that starts at 9:00 p.m. EST will be over and done with by the time they are finishing supper in Hawaii. So they delay the telecast in Hawaii in order to show the game in prime time.

But whenever the Redskins were scheduled to play on Monday night, this man couldn’t wait to find out the final score. So he’d tune in the radio and get the final score of the game, and, as it often happened, he would discover that the Redskins had won.

Then at 9 o’clock, he’d sit down to watch the game on TV. But because he already knew the final outcome, he’d watch it differently than he usually did. In the first half, if the Redskins fumbled and fell behind, instead of becoming all upset and frustrated, he’d say “That’s okay, that’s okay.”

If the quarterback threw an interception and the other team ran it back for a touchdown, he’d just smile and say “That’s alright, no problem.” His wife thought he was crazy. Knowing who won in the end made all the difference in how he experienced the game.

We may be living in an Easter Saturday kind of world. But on Easter Sunday, Jesus won! And because he won, we won.

473 - Victory in Jesus