Encouragement Email – Saturday, Passion Week

Silence on earth, but not in heaven!

As the earth slumbered on, unperturbed that its Creator had been slain by wicked men, the angels rejoiced! Yesterday their Lord returned with a brand plucked from the fire, the thief on the cross! It wasn’t for poetry sake He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43, NKJV). But He had left again.

In Jerusalem, Saturday morning’s sun arose just like every Saturday’s sun had for eons. True, the markets were quiet because of the Mosaic Law, and had been Sabbath-quiet since Israel had taken possession in the days of Joshua, in the division of the Promised Land. Somewhere out on the slopes the women cried and the men hung their heads low, as the elect of elect Israel dropped their heads in that familiar shame that clings to God’s people in this world.

The Prince of Life lived no more, they all knew. The word had spread by the women who had seen where He was laid. His disciples were nowhere to be seen, and strangely, none sought them out for counsel, or to get a word in with their Teacher.

Then came evening and the familial social distancing of the Sabbath lifted. The women who anointed the dead Messiah’s body went back to the markets and bought even more spices to honor it again (Mark 16:1). They would make the lonely trip early the next morning, perhaps not knowing the tomb was sealed and guarded by crack Roman troops.

And earth lumbered on. The Roman military planned their conquests, asking the gods of war for success. Citizens and peasants alike plowed fields, farmed animals, cooked meals, and made sacrifices of animals and their baser appetites at the temple. While students studied and newborns cooed, and while the drunkards drank and the sluggish slept all afternoon, the philosopher and priest earned ridicule for claiming sin to be good and the gods to be fickle. Blindness continued another day. The earth continued on its axis, seemingly none the worse for wear. Across the oceans undiscovered tribes hunted buffalo and fought for territory, raised their families and prayed to the sun. The demons and their hapless subjects, the sons of Adam, didn’t even question, “Why?”

But something else had happened, apart from hapless eyes. The glorious Son of Man proclaimed a great victory to them on Saturday, first in their eternal prisons, for He had been “put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison…” (1 Peter 3:18-19, NKJV). Then I picture the glorious Son of God, now triumphant Son of Man, ascending the mountain of the Lord where the ranks of Satanic intelligentsia and powers howled their protests against the LORD when He prophesied: “I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You” (Hebrews 2:12, NKJV).

Could it be a complete domination of Lucifer and His hundreds of millions army, all arrayed against the sons of men to secure their misery and deaths right before the face of God? Could it be? “Oh yes,” they told each other, from the depths to the heights.

“Defeated by a mere man?” they asked each other. “Oh yes,” they confessed.

“Well,” hissed their Leader, “Not so fast. He’s still with us and not with them, isn’t He?”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sent on April 11, 2020 by the Pastoral Staff (Ted Bigelow, Pastor of Preaching and Development and Steve Ridge, Executive Pastor) of Grace Bible Church of Colorado Springs.