The Saturday

Saturday was a bit of a rough day around here. The family and I were preparing for a large Easter gathering the next day and there was much to be done. This is a busy time of year for most families and ours is no exception. We left a lot till the last minute.

Everyone had lists, and no one really wanted to be there to do the things on those lists. I was having quite a bit of pain that day and had to pace myself so I could get it all done. I find that very frustrating. So much to do and every so often I have to just sit there. Rest. Think about all the things on my list while I sit there not doing them and watching my people do their work. It causes some grumpiness among the ranks I think, to see mom sitting a lot when everyone else is working diligently, and it certainly makes me more irritable.

Even with this tension, the work got done and for the most part, good attitudes won out. But there was a tension, a frustration. I kept having to remind myself that I was determined NOT to ruin it all with my grumpy, frantic, rushing around, ‘getting ready’. I started down that path a few times and then stopped. I hope the family would say I did better this time.

It was not a joyous, happy, carefree Saturday, this day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I thought about that a lot, during my resting periods that day. The Saturday in-between, what a horrid, awful, heartbreakingly dismal day that must have been. Hopeless, utterly.

Those people who had truly believed Jesus was who he said he was, who had given up everything to follow Him, were they deceived? Was he really just another man? It seemed so. They’d taken up their crosses and followed…a man, a regular, human man. The confusion. The sorrow. The wondering, where to go from here. It was all a sham, a lie.

We have the hope of Easter. We have the end of the story. We are the Resurrection People, to borrow a phrase from Ann Voskamp.  They were not. They didn’t know. They were truly and utterly hopeless; the Saturday People. I thought about them, on my Saturday of Frustration, how hard that day must have been; those long dark hours between Jesus saying ‘It is finished,’ and his resurrection.

Then on Sunday I heard the idea of The Saturday People of today. They’re still here among us. Still hopeless, still let down, still waiting on yesterday’s promise. Still unfulfilled. And that made me so sad. It also made me so very thankful to be among the Resurrection People. It makes me want to go and find them all, the Saturday People and tell them there is HOPE. HE IS RISEN! HE IS ALIVE! Come, let me introduce you to my Savior, my Hope. You don’t have to live another single Saturday. Not one.

Come, let me introduce you to the One who came to seek and save the lost.