Passion Week 6

What happened to Death?

Well good morning!

This will be our last devo of the week, as tomorrow I would invite you to join us for church!

Online church but church none the less.

If you want to tune in live you can at 9! I will share that on this page as well!

or you can search Bethel Baptist Church and like the page which will then tell you to jump on when it goes live!

So today is Saturday— and on this day Jesus would be dead, he would have been in the tomb.

Now where did Jesus go after he died, there are a lot of different theories and ideas.

To be honest, I would need to spend more time digging into that one before I give a solid answer.

And honestly like Wednesday nothing is really said about Saturday.

Jesus was of course in the tomb.

The disciples?

There were scattered?

Hiding?

How do you think they would have felt?

Their rabbi/ their teacher who many of the disciples believed he was the Son of God- was just killed.

I think shock, disappointment, anger, bitterness, sadness mourning— would have been pretty common emotions here.

Many of them I think were hiding, behind closed doors.

Brittni and I were talking about the disciples Friday evening and she asked, do you think the disciples knew he was coming back.

And part of me wants to be really hard of the disciples.

Yet, I think they responded exactly like we would have.

Now it is no surprise that Jesus talked about himself coming back to life all over the Gospels.

It is everywhere, here is a place that is pretty explicit.

Matthew 20:17–19 ESV

And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

He told his 12.

Yet where were they on Saturday, I think they were locked away, mourning the lost of their rabbi.

They would have been crushed.

I think we can’t be too hard on them, because up to this point, dead people do not just get up and walk out of tombs.

Exception of course are a couple of people in scripture.

But 99.9% of the time dead people do not wake up.

I half expect the disciples to be at the tomb- with lawn chairs and pop up tents- roasting a fire, just waiting for Jesus to come back, but we don’t see this.

We actually see a couple of Jesus’ disciples get up and head out of Jerusalem the next day.

We see the disciples together yet hiding.

In shock and bewilderment.

Saturday would have been a really hard day for these men and women who had been following Jesus.

Do you ever get put into a position that you know you should trust God but your mind is telling you no?

All the evidence is pointing against God?

What does it look like to trust that someone who predicted his death could also predict his resurrection?

If someone could do that?

What would else would you trust that person with?

I hope it is your whole life?

Jesus predicted everything— So how much do you trust him?

Some thoughts for you on this Saturday before easter.

AS we depart, I pray that this week has been insightful and more than anything has brought you closer to Jesus.

See you tomorrow at online church and for online youth group.

Take care, have a Happy Easter and know that you are loved.