Easter Devotional 19th of April 2025
by Bruce Billington
Easter Devotional 6: Easter Saturday
In most churches, Easter Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, is primarily viewed as a time when Jesus is in the tomb, and it is marked by both mourning for His sufferings and anticipation for the resurrection to come. However, there is much more to this if we take the time to explore it.
1 Corinthians 15:3-4 – “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,”
Note that the Scriptures indicate He was buried by way of being placed in a tomb – this is obviously important. Christ’s death was not a passive laying to rest; rather, it was an active interval during which something transpired.
The great passage about the Messiah in Isaiah 53 says this about Saturday,
Isaiah 53:9 – “His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.”
Jesus lay in His grave as the one made sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). The last words He uttered on the Cross were, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” So Saturday, literally, for the disciples and followers of Christ at that time, is about feeling bewildered, lonely, and profoundly disappointed. This is not uncommon in the journey of any true disciple.
On Saturday, both the cross and resurrection are viewed without turning one into the other. It is about the end of Jesus’ story. There is a new one that begins with the resurrection, which we will cover tomorrow – but His life, His hope, His message – are all currently lying in a tomb, dead on Saturday.
It is a day when prayers remain unanswered, and the hopes left lingering can all be placed at the throne of God as we rest and abide in His presence. Just as Jesus’ followers endured the long hours of that Saturday to see what would happen on Sunday, we too often wait to witness the hand of the Lord in our own lives. We carry prayers that are still unanswered and hopes that have been laid at the throne of God while we abide in His presence.
In Exodus 14, we learn about the Israelites waiting for the Lord to part the sea so they could cross. The Egyptian army was closing in on them, and the Scriptures say they became very afraid and cried out to the Lord. Can you recall times in your life when this occurred? You experienced a desperate need and cried out for God to come and fulfil it. This is Easter Saturday. It is a time of silence. It feels as though God has forsaken you.
God hears the cries of the people of Israel and tells them that He will fight for them while they remain silent (V14). I doubt that this was the word they were hoping to hear. It seems that time has run out, yet God says wait!! They had to yield their fears, anxieties, and their own plans to Him. When it was time to move, the Lord made it clear to them, but there came a time of trusting in being still before He revealed what was next.
Holy Saturday is a time for us to lean into being present in the Lord, placing our own agendas at His feet, and coming before Him with quiet confidence. The Lord desires a relationship with us, and a requirement of a relationship is time together. Holy Saturday is a great day not to ask for anything but to spend time with the Lord.
The Good News is that God can raise us from the dead, overcome the impossible, and suddenly invade a hopeless situation, dramatically transforming it all. The wonder of going from Saturday to Sunday lies in its total unexpectedness.
Here is some great advice from Paul Tripp.
In this season, stop and take time to assess where you’re still telling yourself that you’re rich (righteous) and admit the extent of your past and present poverty, so that you can truly celebrate the once-unattainable riches that are yours, not because of what you have done, but because of what has been done for you.
God bless you.