Daily Blast - Easter: Day 10
Scripture
“18 But the Jewish leaders demanded, “What are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.”
19 “All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
20 “What!” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?” 21 But when Jesus said “this temple,” he meant his own body.”
Reflection
Today is Saturday, we know that yesterday was Good Friday and Jesus had died. He’d been crucified and put in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Tomorrow is Sunday where we know what happens but the disciples didn’t, so let’s just think of the characters involved.
Jesus, the light of the world, was in a tomb dead. Hope had been extinguished.
The chief priests and the Pharisees, they had gone to Pilate and said, “we hear this troublemaker has said he would come back from the dead. We need to stop that! We should put a guard at the tomb.” So they persuaded Pilate to put soldiers on the tomb to stop anybody from coming and opening up the tomb and stealing the body and pretending that Jesus has risen.
His disciples, they’d scattered. In fact, only John had been at the crucifixion. All the others had run away in fear for their lives. They disappeared, they had gone. All the hope they had had been taken away. Their Rabbi, who they spent the last 3 years with, who told them about hope, was dead.
Some parts of the church call today “Black Saturday” or “Holy Saturday” because it is a day of despair if you look at it from the day of the disciples. They were alone. They didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know what to believe. They didn’t know if any hope was left.
But there is a verse in the bible that says, “if Christ is not raised we are still in our sins and to be pitied above all men.” There is no point. There is no point in life because death is a full stop. The finish.
Today is Saturday, but Sunday is soon coming, where there is hope. And where we find that death is not the end. That Jesus has risen and we have hope for eternal life. Because, what Jesus did on the cross was to give us the opportunity to have a restored relationship with Almighty God and spend eternity with Him.
That’s the hope we have.
Today is Black Saturday but tomorrow is Easter Sunday.
Challenge
Today’s challenge is to hold onto hope even when you’re tempted to despair or feel down or circumstances are difficult. Like at the moment with the Corona virus everywhere, lots of people are concerned and feel frightened. Don’t give in to that but hold onto hope. To end the challenge I’d like you to go and look up my favourite verse about hope. You can find it in Romans 15:13.