We continue to remember Jesus’ last week on earth. Sunday is now called Palm Sunday, the day the crowd shouted Hosanna and waved their palm branches in the air. Monday, Jesus cleansed the temple. Tuesday, he returned to the temple to teach. Wednesday was his last day in the temple and was the day that Judas offered to betray Jesus to the temple authorities. Thursday, Jesus shared the Last Supper and was arrested in Gethsemane. Friday, he was tortured and crucified. Last week, as we left him on Friday, his lifeless body was lying in a cold, borrowed tomb. Today, in our remembrance, it is Saturday. The Gospel writers do not tell us very much about Saturday, but they don’t need to tell us a lot. Our experience is more than ample to fill the story in. Matthew tells us that the Roman governor posted a guard at the entrance to the tomb. Why? The temple authorities had heard rumors about a resurrection. The story was that he was to rise on the third day! Did they believe it? They did not believe it for a single minute. Why should they? There was nothing in their experience to support such a notion. But they were afraid that the disciples would try to stage a resurrection by stealing his body and claiming that he had been raised from the dead. This is a quiz. What did the temple authorities and the disciples have in common? None of them believed that Jesus would be resurrected! How could they? There was nothing in their experience to make it a believable possibility. Pilate agreed that a staged resurrection would be a very bad thing, so he loaned guards to the temple authorities and told them to make the tomb secure. The guard was posted. The great seal of Rome was posted on the door. Nobody in his right mind would try to steal the body now. The tomb belonged to Joseph of Arimethea, apparently a “wealthy enough” member of the Jewish ruling body, the Sanhedrin. It was, in all likelihood, a cave that had been cut into a limestone hill. Those who entered would probably first enter an entry room and then, off to the side, there would be smaller rooms, complete with shelves where the bodies were laid to rest. There the bodies would be left, over time, while the process of natural decay took its course. To protect the body from animals, a stone would be rolled in front of the door. This is where the body of Jesus spent Saturday. And what about the disciples? We can only guess, though we can make some good guesses. It was the Sabbath and the entire nation was taking the day away from work. If you were a disciple, what would you do? I suspect that they gathered together for the simple purpose of being together in their grief and sorrow. It was the Sabbath and the Sabbath rules prohibited any kind of elaborate work so I suspect that their meals were fairly simple. Most of the time, the men and the women will separate for conversation. So we can see a group or two of men in one place and little groups of women nearby. It is not that they were required to stand apart from one another. There was, no doubt, conversation among them, but they probably, in the most natural way possible, formed up little conversation groups with one another. What did they talk about? I believe that it would have been the kind of conversation that follows the death of every beloved friend or family member. They talked about Jesus. They told stories about their times together. Someone remembered the theme of his teaching, “The Kingdom is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel.” You can bet your life that they talked about those times when they were convinced that God’s Kingdom was about to break out in a brand new way. Do you remember the time that he fed the five thousand, plus the women and children, and had a dozen baskets of food left over? Do you remember the look on that little kid’s face when Jesus asked him for his lunch? That poor kid thought that Jesus was going to eat his lunch! Little did he know what would happen. Nobody knew what was going to happen. We started passing out fish and bread and we just never came to the end of it. Everybody had enough to eat! Do you remember when his cousin John was killed? Did we ever see him any sadder than we saw him that day? Do you know the thing that I remember the most? Some days, early in the morning, before we ever opened our eyes, he would go away some place and pray. He did more praying than any man that I ever knew. In fact he was so good at it that we asked him to teach us how to pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Do you remember that time when he brushed his mother and brothers off? I thought that Mary would kill him for that. I guess he was trying to make a point. At the time, they wondered if he was crazy and …. They patched it up ok. Do you remember how he touched the lepers and spent time with the Samaritans and ate his lunch on the Sabbath and generally gave the Pharisees heartburn? They never did understand, did they? Do you know what else I remember? I remember him saying that he was the Lord of the Sabbath! That caused a furor! The Pharisees had real tantrums over that. As they remembered, I am convinced that there were times of silence when they wondered, what now? All of their hopes were now dashed. The man they loved like a brother and father and teacher and savior was now lying cold stone dead in a borrowed tomb and it looked for all the world to them like Jesus and they had been defeated. As the Sabbath comes to an end, the only thing that any of them can do is prepare for Sunday. On Sunday, the women will carry some spices to the tomb, some sweet smelling spices that will prevent his body from smelling badly as it decays. That will be their last act of love for this remarkable friend. Have you ever lived through a Saturday? Have you ever lived through a time when the loss and sorrow was so intense that the only future that you could ever imagine was one of continuing defeat? That may never happen to you but it probably will. There are seasons that are like that, seasons when life seems empty and cold and even dead. The news is this. The disciples had no way to really know but we know that Sunday always follows Saturday. We know that every Good Friday is followed by God’s own Easter miracle. I think that I know a little about the disciples’ experience. They were in shock and there was a time of spiritual and emotional numbness. There was a time of complete spiritual confusion. Their world was emotionally and spiritually dark and they saw no dawn on the horizon. They could barely pray, so far away did God seem to them. A giant hole had been torn in their hearts and their dominant reality was the pain of the emotional and spiritual wound. All they could do was cling to one another and remember and dare to try to hope and pray for a better day. Actually they could cling to one another and love one another and there was nothing else they cold do. If anything was going to happen, It had to come from God. It had to come from God. It had to come from God. If anything good was going to happen…. This is where we leave Saturday. But we know the rest of the story. Sunday is coming.