I am writing this on Easter Sunday: Resurrection Sunday. Four months on from the start of this illness, I’m still not better. In fact, over the past few weeks I’ve not been feeling well at all, with new symptoms added. Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying this for your sympathy, so please don’t give me any; no ‘care’ emoji reactions required! But I am writing this because I have several friends who have been waiting years for their situation to change. I am writing this today as a message of hope to myself and for you as you read it, if you are also waiting.
So, Easter got off to a good start with our Palm Sunday service and we were looking forward to traveling east to be with family after our Good Friday morning service. I won’t lie, I did feel a bit stressed by all the preparations and did have a bit of a meltdown! Nevertheless, by the grace of God, 20 of us shared communion together and I had the privilege of explaining why Good Friday, when we remember Jesus’s death by crucifixion, is so very good.
Easter Saturday. The first Easter Saturday must have been unbearable for the disciples. They had left everything to follow Jesus; they had put all their hope in him. But now he was dead. They must have felt terrified, abandoned, hopeless. They all fled, and I don’t blame them; I would have done the same. But they didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes, or as I should rather say, behind the stone. Jesus was doing something truly wonderful: he was working to defeat the enemy and conquer death once for all.
I got up on Easter Saturday morning looking forward to the first day of a week with family. I logged into Facebook briefly to update the church page and I read this, posted by one of my friends who is waiting for their situation to change:
“This Holy Saturday
In our grief of unknowing
In our cravings for insistence upon immediacy of answers
In our desperate disappointment
In our weary and weighty waiting
We Hold on”
She concluded her post with the bridge from Way Maker:
“Even when I don’t see it, You’re working
Even when I don’t feel it, You’re working
You never stop, You never stop working
You never stop, You never stop working”
It really struck me. She has been waiting a lot longer than I have, and so have other friends. Our situation, sickness or circumstance doesn’t mean that Jesus isn’t doing anything. Unlike those first disciples, we know how the story ends! Even if we can’t see Jesus doing anything ‘behind the stone’, we can be assured that he is working for our good.
Easter Sunday. I woke up on ‘Resurrection Sunday’ and, as every morning, read the verse of the day on YouVersion. It was the verse that is most commonly read on Resurrection Sunday: “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.” Then, unlike most days, I listened to the short devotional that went with the verse. I can’t stop thinking about it. The guy was focusing on the phrase, “just as He said” and he said that every promise that God has ever made is backed up by an empty tomb. Wow! How had I never seen that before? No matter what we are facing or what life may throw at us, as followers of Jesus we have this assurance.
Let that sink in for a minute: every promise that God has ever made is backed up by an empty tomb.
So, I am taking one day at a time with this confident assurance and hope. If you are reading this and are waiting, or you are still waiting, think about that empty tomb and the risen Christ, who lives today to give unshakable hope to everyone who puts their trust in him.
Love as always, pob bendith,
Sharon x
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