Comments Off on Waiting on the Sabbath — Holy Saturday
https://youtu.be/W5JSF9dKNoM
Marley was dead to begin with.
That’s the first line of Charles Dickens’ story, “A Christmas Carol.” In 1843, Charles Dickens spent the entire first page of that book explaining just how dead Jacob Marley was. Then he ends his point with “There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.”
Well, the same must be understood about Jesus’ death. It must be fully understood that Jesus Christ was emphatically dead. Jesus willingly endured the humiliation and the pain of the events leading up to the Crucifixion. He willingly endured the nails through His hands and His feet. He willingly breathed His last and gave up His life on the Cross. Jesus was dead.
It was a long night that turned into a darker morning.
Jesus had already been awake for hours. Arrested in a garden. Betrayed by a friend.
They dragged from one trial to another while the city slowly woke up.
First, the religious leaders, then Pontius Pilate, finally, mocked by soldiers who treated the King of Heaven like a criminal. They struck Him and spit on Him. They pressed a crown of thorns into His head and wrapped Him in a robe to laugh at Him. “Hail, King of the Jews,” they said. But their sarcasm accidentally told the truth. Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. Yet pressure from the crowd was louder than his conscience. And so the sentence was given: crucifixion.
Roman crucifixion was designed to be slow and humiliating. Jesus carried His cross through the streets to a hill called Golgotha. Nails were driven through His hands and feet. The cross was lifted. And there the Son of God hung between heaven and earth.
Yet, what’s astonishing is not just the suffering. It’s His words.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
The Reason He Came
In the middle of injustice, Jesus offered mercy. In the middle of pain, He offered grace.
For hours, darkness covered the land. Then Jesus cried out and breathed His last. The earth shook. The temple curtain tore in two. And a Roman centurion looked up at the cross and said, “Surely this was the Son of God.” (Matthew 27:54)
That evening, a man named Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body and placed it in a tomb. A stone was rolled across the entrance.
It looked like the end.
But Good Friday is called good for a reason. Because what looked like defeat was actually redemption’s beginning. The Cross was not the failure of Jesus’ mission—it was the very reason He came.
And in three days, the world would see that death never had the final word.
I still remember someone handing me a palm branch when I was about seven years old at my grandmother’s Presbyterian church. Since I didn’t grow up going to church, I had no idea why everyone had these branches. Years later, after becoming a Christian, I realized Palm Sunday marks the beginning of one of the most important weeks in all of human history.
Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ. But this week points us to something even greater — the moment Jesus willingly walked toward the Cross to bring salvation to the world.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a colt, just as the prophet Zechariah foretold. Crowds waved palm branches and shouted, “Hosanna!” welcoming Him as King. It was the first time Jesus openly allowed Himself to be publicly declared the Messiah.