lent day 46

 Saturday.

The day when nothing happened.

The day when all hope was lost.  When the disciples not only lost Jesus but also had to come to terms with losing Judas whilst trying to understand his betrayal.  The day when the fear of being hunted down and crucified too must have been very real and terrifying.  Saturday, the day when Joseph was having to explain to his family why he had let the family tomb be the final resting place of someone who had been crucified as a criminal.  When Mary relived every moment of her extraordinary life as the mother of the Messiah and wondered what on earth it had all been for.   John and Peter, heartbroken. The women wanting to do something practical for the body of Jesus but not being allowed to even pack a bag of linen and spices because it was the Sabbath.   Nobody will have slept on the Friday night. They will have sat together trying to comfort each other, recalling the horror of His death and wondering what was going to happen to them now.  Nobody has eaten anything for hours. When one disciple stops sobbing another one starts.  Exhausting. Heartbreaking. Nobody had seen this coming

Ive only experienced heart wrenching grief once. And it wasnt when someone died. It was when the man I thought was going to marry me decided he didnt want to marry me when I was in my early twenties. I cried for six months. I went through all the stages of grief, denial, bargaining, anger, depression, before eventually. after a long long time, reaching acceptance.  I would wake up in the morning and for a moment forget that he was no longer in my life. Then the realisation would come crashing in and the devastation would hit me like a tsunami of grief.  I never want to experience that again. It was horrible.  Perhaps it has made me close down my heart so it will never again hurt like that .  Or maybe forewarned is forearmed and now I have a more realistic and healthy relationship with the possibility of loss and the inevitability of death,  I wasn't only grieving the loss of love, but also the loss of the future I had imagined living with that love. I couldn't imagine ever falling for anyone else. I saw a grim and lonely future stretching out ahead of me. I was so so sad for a very long time.

The grief experienced by the disciples must have been so much worse because they had been loved by Jesus and His love had always been pure and perfect, never selfish or clouded by misunderstandings and miscommunications.  The disciples had been able to love Him in ways they had never loved anyone else before. The loss must have felt monumental, devastating, impossible. Their hearts must have truly been broken, their sadness overwhelming

They didnt know Sunday was coming

On Saturday they were full of grief and trauma.  Like the people of Gaza and Ukraine and Sudan and so many places in the world. Today we sit with those who grieve and we wait.