Second Blog – The Day After

This, the day after the crucifixion, isn’t talked about much in the Bible. Think, though, about the different groups of people who figured prominently in the resurrection events, and what it would have been like to be among them.

The apostles were hiding, terrified that the Roman soldiers would come looking for them to kill them in the same way Jesus had been killed on the cross. Add to this their complete emotional devastation as they struggled to understand how Jesus could both rule over death for Lazarus and be subjected to death Himself. Bewilderment, fear, crushing disappointment – They didn’t know what to think or do, where to go, how to pick up the pieces of their lives which lay before them shattered. It was all they could see or feel.

The women seem to have handled the day differently. Someone had to purchase the burial herbs and spices, someone collected the items necessary for proper treatment of the body, some of them made the selection of Mary to go to the tomb. Maybe it was a cultural thing of that time, maybe women are just wired differently emotionally, but the women were strongly motivated to show Jesus’ body the care they knew to be appropriate. Enough so that Mary was willing to face the Roman soldiers she expected to find guarding the tomb on the cool morning of the next day.

And the soldiers themselves: battle-toughened Roman soldiers, sitting around the tomb, probably thinking it was an easy but boring assignment. Men who had vanquished armies and brutally dominated whole countries: these same men would, in a matter of hours, be fleeing in terror as angels of the Living God came to move the stone and greet their risen King. But during the evening hours, these soldiers were unaware, confident in their power to control.

As for the religious establishment, the priests and leaders who were charged by God with the responsibility of teaching and guiding the nation of Israel in service to God – they used their power to kill His Son. In spite of the earthquake, the darkness, the ripping apart of the temple curtain — in spite of all the manifestations of Divine displeasure that occurred surrounding the crucifixion — there’s no indication that the religious leaders were doing anything that day and evening but celebrating their elimination of a threat to their status quo.

What about the crowds of people who thronged Jerusalem for the Passover holiday? Did the same men and women who greeted Jesus with palm branches and hosannas on Wednesday, demand His death on Friday? It seems impossible that His followers would have been in the murderous crowds but all the visitors to Jerusalem were NOT followers. They had doubtlessly heard of Jesus, but they were not going to risk their freedom and lives for an itinerant preacher Who could jeopardize their safety by claiming to be a king, a threat to Rome’s rule over Judea. It is a fearful thing to consider that a nominally religious nation could commit such a crime, and never give it a second thought as they observed a holiday commemorating God’s deliverance.

So, these are the groups of “players” on the next day, each group passing the day in divergent ways, unaware that the next day, the third day, would complete a process that re-shaped history.

Into which group would my heart have led me in those beginning days of the first century?

That question has popped into mind many times over the years, as I’ve read the gospels. Of course, there’s no way to answer it but it needs to be considered because it’s important to realize that if we did not or do not follow Jesus, we wouldn’t think or live the way we do. As children of the Most High God, we have been washed to perfection by the blood of Christ, and we aren’t the same people we would have been without it. My mother always reminded us, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Amen, Mom.

So this was the day in between, a day to be endured or employed, a day of unknown events to come… a day in the first century that was similar in these ways to this day in the twenty-first century.

As the different groups passed through the night and into the next day, The Day-of-Days, the lives of the men and women who followed Jesus changed forever. And that has never changed: as we follow Jesus, He changes us, step by step, forever.