Good Friday — Dark Saturday

Photo by AJ Spencer

When I was a youngster, school officials dismissed classes early on Good Friday—the Friday before Easter Sunday—so families could attend church services commemorating the crucifixion of Christ. Easter vacation usually came the following week.

Today that vacation time is called spring break and we never hear the term “Good Friday.” In fact, very few churches hold services any more.

But everyone knows what Black Friday is—the big spending day after Thanksgiving.

I’d argue that the heftier expenditure occurred on a hill outside Jerusalem one spring Friday a couple thousand years ago—the day the Light went out.

The Gospel accounts of Christ’s crucifixion tell us the sun was darkened, the earth shook and the dead climbed up from graves ripped open.

Imagine living during Dark Saturday—the day after the death of Jesus. Sure, the sun came up again, but how cold and dismal the world. How puzzled and fearful Jesus’ followers must have been when they saw dead men walking, not as zombies but alive, and the One who had given life dead and buried.

Jesus had called Himself the Light of the World. He said men would not walk in darkness if they knew Him. What did His disciples think that Saturday, a Sabbath that prevented them from doing anything other than sitting and thinking?

Sometimes we feel the same. We brood over the death of a dream or missed opportunity, and we have no idea that resurrection life is about to come with the dawn.

When God first said, “Let there be light,” light appeared before He made the sun and moon and stars. There is so much more to the Light of the World than we could ever imagine.

Today, let His power shine in your world. And may you be confident in the knowledge that darkness will never conquer the Light of Life.