The Weight of Three Days

Suffering, Silence & Singing

HOOK- The Weight of the Resurrection

"There is a phenomenon in the human heart where time doesn't follow the ticking of a clock. Scientists call it 'time dilation,' but we know it as the 'Weight of Waiting.'

Imagine a young apprentice working under a master watchmaker. On a bright, easy Monday, the hours fly by like seconds. But then comes a day of crisis—perhaps a fire in the shop or a tragic loss. Suddenly, a single hour feels like a decade. The clock on the wall hasn't changed its speed, but the weight of the day has slowed the world to a crawl.

Two thousand years ago, the followers of Jesus entered a weekend that lasted an eternity. To us, looking back, it’s just a page turn in a Bible. But for them, it was a crushing, physical weight. It was a Friday of suffocating trauma, a Saturday of deafening silence, and a Sunday of gravity-defying hope."

"Every one of us in this room is currently carrying the weight of a 'Three Day' story.

Some of you are in Friday: You are in the thick of the pain. The 'it is finished' feels like an end, not a beginning.

Some of you are in Saturday: You are in the silence. You’re waiting for a God who seems to have gone quiet, and the weight of the unknown is pressing down on your chest.

And some of you—I pray—are ready for Sunday: Where the weight is finally rolled away.

Big Idea: If you can get to Sunday, the weight will be lifted.

Day One: Suffering Friday

Situation and Context (Matt 26:36-39)

Gethsemane

This scene occurs after the Passover meal Jesus eats with his disciples

Gethsemane is a Garden east of the Kidron Valley, on the slopes of the Mount of Olives

Some scholars have noted the apt metaphor for what actually went on there—it was an oil press, the place where olives “squeezed” in order to extract their oil

This compares with what happens to Jesus, who is tested to the extreme—to the point where Luke diagnosis his condition as Hematidrosis, when physical stress becomes so intense that the body excretes blood as though it were sweat, via the rupturing of tiny capillaries

The agony and weight of suffering certainly included:

The fact that Judas had already made plans to betray him for 30 pieces of silver

I’m sure he thought ahead to when Peter would deny him

When all the disciples would desert him

But the Metaphorical Cup that he would have to drink would be uniquely his, no one could drink it for him—another would not be able nor would they want to

As the God-Man designated to succeed where the first man failed—as the one who was preordained to remove the guilty stain of humanity’s sin that caused us to be separated from God

Our filthy actions and wayward thoughts—our foul mouths and lewd conversation—all in need of repentance and regeneration

And in order for such to occur, Jesus must experience something new, again—he’s already taken on human flesh, but now he must bear the weight of the world’s sin so that mercy can mean something and grace can be given

The Saint and Suffering (Theological)

As children of God, we don’t idolize suffering nor do we long for it, but we understand that according to God’s divine design, it has a place in accomplishing his purpose and does not function as some unexpected aberration that has caught God by surprise

(Illustration) The Pastor Loved for his Suffering

Teacher and author Paul Borthwick was on a visit to one of his friends who teaches in Beijing, China. He attended a church with four young men who were new believers thanks to his friend’s ministry. The service was in Mandarin, so Paul understood nothing, but he did think the pastor, a very senior man, seemed a little boring. He was soft-spoken, a little stooped over, and preached without any expressions of excitement or emotion.

At lunch after the service, Paul asked the four young Christians, “Is your pastor a good preacher?” They exclaimed, “Oh yes! He is a great preacher. He spent many years in prison for Jesus Christ.”

Their measurement of the sermon and the pastor’s ministry had nothing to do with oratory ability and everything to do with a life faithfully lived in the face of suffering.

Application

Some of you are in Suffering Friday right now and you’re wondering what’s the point

Because you can’t fathom any good reason why you’re under so much pressure

But could it be that God is testing you, training you or preparing you for what he wants to do through you?

Or how about, even now, as you’re struggling, and though you are not broadcasting it to the world, there are some people who have their eyes on you

The unsaved person is saying, she claimed to be a Christian, let me see how she handles this

Or perhaps the saved person is looking at you saying, “I don’t know how I’d act if that were me, but the very fact he hasn’t given up makes want to trust God even more”

It is often because of my suffering that God makes me valuable in the kingdom

Friday Principle: Suffering Friday comes as a necessary stop on the way to Calvary—quit trying to avoid it and trust God through it, because Sunday is coming

Day Two: Silent Saturday

Situation and Context (Luke 23:50-56)

The Bible records almost nothing pertaining to the Saturday after Jesus died

What we know is that later Friday (meaning after 3PM but before 6PM) Joseph of Arimathea, who is a member of the council, along with Nicodemus are granted their request to remove the body of Jesus from the cross

They then wrap it in a linen cloth and place it in a tomb. Some of the women who came with the disciples from Galilee go to the tomb with aromatics and spices

When there appears to be distance (Theological)

However, it’s the “B Clause” of Luke 23:56 that speaks to us in the Silence of Saturday

The Greek term that translates “rest” (ἡσυχάζω), which means to be still or remain silent

What these few, and generally passed over words teach us is that though disappointments abound and though hopes and dreams may appear dashed, there is no substitute for following the commandments of the Lord

Perhaps they thought that this was one of those extenuating circumstances where we could get away with not honoring the Sabbath this year—after all, our Messianic hope just died

Maybe you’re here today saying that I’ve had a rough go in life, and no one has ever done anything for me, God doesn't appear to be speaking, is it alright if I bend the rules just a little this one time?

No...the women at the tomb give us the first principle of Silent Saturday: When God appears silent, keep following His commandments

Some people can’t handle silence, it becomes too loud—others learn to embrace it

Silence (Illustration)

In 1801, at the age of 30, Ludwig van Beethoven complained about his diminishing hearing: “From a distance I do not hear the high notes of the instruments and the singers’ voices.”

Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks notes that Beethoven “raged” against his decline. To be able to hear his own playing, he banged on pianos so forcefully that he often left them wrecked. By the age 45, he was completely deaf. He considered suicide but was held back only by the force of “moral rectitude.”

Cut off from the world of sound around him … at times he held a pencil in his mouth against his piano’s soundboard to feel the harmony of his chords. However, Beethoven produced the best music of his career, culminating in his incomparable Ninth Symphony, a composition so daringly new that it reinvented classical musical altogether.

Brooks wrote, “It seems a mystery that Beethoven became more original and brilliant as a composer in inverse proportion to his ability to hear. Deafness freed Beethoven as a composer because he no longer had society’s soundtrack in his ears.”

Application

In silence, God can do for you, what being surrounded by noise cannot

Some of us (me included) always have something blasting in our ears—we don’t value silence

We go to sleep with the TV on

The radio is blaring as soon as we start the car

We’ve got headphones on and cellphones glued to our faces at all times

When do we turn down the volume long enough to hear God speak?

And so there are times when God has to force silence upon us, just to get us to sit down somewhere and be still

Saturday Principle #2: God doesn’t have to be loud in order to speak—if we were to ask Elijah (1Kings 19), he’d say that God did not come in the whirlwind, he didn’t come in the earthquake, nor the fire, but in the still silent whisper

He’d say, “When I thought I was the only one still serving him—I was serving him in overdrive”

“I thought I was the one holding up the blood stained banner”

I battled depression because I though I’d be killed

I was improving the plight of widows who were in poverty

I battled wicked kings and false prophets—if for no one else, I was sure that God would speak to me by making a grand entrance

But he had to sit me down and slow me down, so I could hear him speak

That’s the Weight of Saturday...

Day Three: Singing Sunday

Situation and Context (Matt 28:1-8, Mark 16:1-18, Luke 24:1-12, John 20:1-13)

All four Gospels tell us that women were the first to witness the empty tomb and that they were the ones to go and tell the disciples

With a story of this magnitude, this is significant for a few reasons

It adds validity to the truth and historicity of the Resurrection, because no one makes up a story where your initial eye witness is a woman, unless the story is actually true

This is what historians call the Criterion of Embarrassment—the more embarrassing details mentioned in a narrative, the higher probability that the story is true

But this would also be empowering for these women and others following them in what Jesus built—that they weren't simply bystanders to the story but were an integral part of the Gospel message

And so, after seeing the empty tomb, they are greeted by Angels and told to tell the disciples what they have seen and to meet the risen Jesus in Galilee

Between the time, Jesus makes a number of resurrected appearances to groups

To the 11 without Thomas

To the 11 with Thomas

To the two on the Emmaus Road

To the 500 brothers at one time (According to Paul)

Singing Theologically (Matthew 28:17 “When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.” )

This is where singing become important, because singing is the aspect of worship that everyone with a voice can engage

Singing itself—what one sings and whether or not one sings— often reveals our current take on reality

Did you know that singing was commanded in the Bible?

Aside from Psalms being the longest book in the Bible, there are hundreds of commands to sing

It’s also a part of spiritual formation in that singing is an indicator of your maturity (Ephesians 5:18–19 “And do not get drunk with wine, which is debauchery, but be filled by the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your hearts to the Lord,” )

The passage about the Kenosis (Emptying) of Christ in Phil 2:6-11 is known to have been a hymn that Paul employs in encouraging the Philippians

I know what you're saying—not everyone knows how to sing

But what you really mean to say is that not everyone sings well

There are those who sing well (Like X, and the praise team and the choir)

There are the rest of us who don’t sing as well—that’s okay, that's why there are hymns and congregational songs created just for us

My concern is twofold:

For those who are singing the wrong songs AND

for those who don’t sing who at all

If you’re singing the wrong songs (everything that hits the top of the charts or every new Kanye West release), what you're saying is that the author of those songs you sing are responsible for your well being when times get hard—they are responsible for keeping your soul when life has been interrupted

And, If you don’t sing at all (songs of faith), it tells me that you more than likely live life stuck in Suffering Friday or Silent Saturday, never arriving to Sunday

When we don’t sing here is what Christians miss—we miss that singing in life and the singing of life are rooted in the Resurrection

That’s why even the most common person loves new things—it’s why we historically dressed up on Easter—it’s because there is a longing in our souls to experience something brand new—from head to toe

Sunday Principle: When we accept the Resurrection for what it truly is, we come to understand that it was not just an historical event (though it was that)— we come to realize that no matter what day we might actually be experiencing—Suffering Friday or Silent Saturday, Messed up Monday, or Trouble-filled Tuesday...

Singing allows us to transform that day into Sunday

TOOK- Revival Singing

One of the most notable, but least studied, aspects of the 18th-century revivals that led to the rise of modern evangelicalism was the disputed place of hymn-singing. In his very first report on the unusual religious stirrings in Northampton, Massachusetts from 1736, Jonathan Edwards noted that although his congregation had already learned the era's new style of singing—"three parts of music, and the women a part by themselves"—the revival had worked an extraordinary musical effect:

Our public praises were greatly enlivened, and God was served in our psalmody as in the beauties of holiness. There was scarce any part of divine worship wherein God's saints among us had grace so drawn forth and their hearts lifted up, as in singing the praises of God.

And so I say to each of you keep singing,

Favorable conditions—keep singing

Unfavorable conditions—keep singing

and if you need a song to sing, try this one:

Hallelujah, Salvation and glory

The Lord our God, He is wonderful

For the Lord our God is mighty

The Lord our God is Omnipotent

The Lord our God, He is wonderful

OR MAYBE YOU KNOW THIS ONE

AT THE CROSS, AT THE CROSS...

And I wonder if there is anybody here, who knows what it’s like to sing?

KEEP SINGNG BECAUSE SINGING HELPS LIFT THE WEIGHT!!!