“And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.” — Matthew 27:59-60
The stone rolls into place with a hollow thud. Dust scatters. Silence falls.
Holy Saturday. The day heaven held its breath. The day between despair and deliverance, between the cross and the crown. We know it as the pause between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but for those first disciples? It was simply the day their hope died.
Picture them huddled behind locked doors. Shoulders stooped. Eyes red-rimmed from tears. Every plan shattered. Have you been there? Have you lived your own Holy Saturday? That unwelcome space where your prayers seem to echo against a stone-cold sky and God’s silence feels deafening?
For just a moment, let’s sit here together in the dust of Holy Saturday. Not rushing ahead to resurrection morning, but letting our souls feel the weight of the waiting. For in this emptiness, this gap between what was and what will be, God is doing His greatest work – silent, unseen, but unstoppable.
JOB’S LAMENT AND UNEXPECTED HOPE
Job knew all about Holy Saturday moments.
“Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.” Honest words from a broken man. “He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down.” Job 14:1-2 reads like epitaph Jesus could have worn.
But listen to what this sufferer says next. It’s astonishing, really. He glances at a stump in his yard – just a dead tree, chopped down and forgotten. Yet something catches his eye. “For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again” (Job 14:7).
A whisper of hope in a wasteland of pain.
Isn’t that just like our God? To plant resurrection hints in the most unexpected places? They buried Jesus like a seed on Friday, not knowing what Sunday’s garden would reveal. And Job asks the question that haunts every cemetery, every hospital room, every Holy Saturday: “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14).
He couldn’t have known he was prophesying. Couldn’t have imagined that centuries later, a lifeless body in a borrowed tomb would forever answer his question.
THE PSALMIST’S TRUST IN PERFECT TIMING
The clock on Holy Saturday moved with agonizing slowness. Minutes stretched like years. The disciples had lost track of time because they had lost track of hope.
Yet the psalmist whispers courage into our Holy Saturday moments: “In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed” (Psalm 31:1). Notice – he doesn’t say, “I trust you because everything makes sense.” He says, “I trust you, period.”
He calls God “my rock and my fortress” (Psalm 31:3). Not very glamorous titles, are they? Rocks are plain, ordinary things. Until you’re drowning. Until you’re under attack. Until you need something solid to stand on while your world crumbles.
Then comes that breathtaking phrase that could be the theme of Holy Saturday: “My times are in thy hand” (Psalm 31:15). Five small words that change everything. Jesus’ body lay in the tomb not because the plan had failed but because the plan was right on schedule.
The disciples didn’t understand the timetable. Do we? When the medical test comes back positive… when the relationship shatters… when the job ends… can we still whisper, “My times are in thy hand”? Holy Saturday invites us to trust the Father’s clock, not our calendar.
PETER’S REFLECTION ON SUFFERING’S PURPOSE
Years later, Peter would write about suffering with new eyes. The disciple who fled in fear on Friday would become the apostle who found meaning in suffering.
“Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind” (1 Peter 4:1). Easy words to write. Brutal words to live.
Peter had learned something in the crucible of Holy Saturday. Something precious. While Jesus’ body lay wrapped in grave clothes, heaven wasn’t idle. The stillness wasn’t empty – it was pregnant with purpose.
Peter hints at this when he writes about the gospel being “preached also to them that are dead” (1 Peter 4:6). Something earth-shattering was happening behind the veil while the world saw only a sealed tomb. The Saturday silence wasn’t God’s absence – it was God working where human eyes couldn’t see.
And then Peter tells us, with the confidence of a man who’s seen resurrection firsthand, that “the end of all things is at hand” (1 Peter 4:7). Holy Saturday people know this truth: What looks final to us is just the midpoint of God’s story.
MATTHEW’S ACCOUNT OF WAITING AND WATCHING
Matthew pulls back the curtain on history’s most important Saturday.
Joseph of Arimathea hadn’t planned on spending his evening cradling a corpse. But there he was, this wealthy man handling the broken body of his Rabbi with gentle reverence. He wraps Jesus in clean linen – one final act of dignity amid unspeakable cruelty. He rolls the stone. He walks away.
And the women? They couldn’t leave. Matthew tells us they “sat over against the sepulchre” (Matthew 27:61). They simply sat and watched. Not understanding. Not rejoicing. Just keeping vigil. Have you ever loved someone so much that even when hope died, you couldn’t walk away?
Meanwhile, the religious leaders remember something the disciples had forgotten – Jesus’ promise to rise again. Isn’t it ironic? His enemies took his words more seriously than his friends did. They seal the tomb. Post a guard. Make it “as sure as ye can” (Matthew 27:65).
As sure as they can. Three words that define the limits of human power. For what stone, what seal, what soldier could possibly contain the Creator of atoms and oceans? They were trying to lock God in a box with tape and string. And all their precautions? They would soon become evidence for the very event they tried to prevent.
CONCLUSION: WAITING WITH PURPOSE
The beauty of living on this side of that first Easter is that we know how Holy Saturday ends. We’ve peeked at the last page of the story.
This doesn’t make our personal Holy Saturdays easier. The waiting still aches. The silence still unnerves. But it does make them bearable, because we know that tombs are temporary accommodations in God’s economy.
Every Holy Saturday in your life – those bewildering seasons when God seems absent and hope seems foolish – carries meaning you cannot yet see. The tomb wasn’t a detour in Jesus’ mission. It was the mission. And your darkness, your waiting, your confusion is not a cosmic accident. It’s soil where resurrection grows.
So the next time you find yourself in a Holy Saturday moment, remember this: Sundays always follow Saturdays. Always. It’s how God designed time itself. The clock is still ticking. The story isn’t over. And what looks like an ending to you might just be God’s prelude to a beginning you cannot yet imagine.
POINTS TO PONDER
- Name Your Saturday Spaces: Where are you sitting “over against the sepulchre” in your life right now? What dreams or hopes have been buried that you’re keeping vigil over?
- Trust God’s Perfect Timing: If you truly believed the words “My times are in thy hand,” how would you view your current waiting season differently? What anxieties could you release?
- Learn the Tree’s Secret: A chopped-down tree still holds life within. What in your life seems dead but might actually be dormant, waiting for the right season to sprout again?
- Keep Sacred Vigil: The women didn’t understand, but they stayed and watched anyway. How might intentional “watching” through prayer and Scripture sustain you when understanding fails?
- Look for Resurrection Signs: God often plants hints of coming resurrection in unexpected places. What small signs of life or hope have you overlooked in your focus on the sealed tomb?
CLOSING PRAYER
Father of resurrections great and small, we come to you from our own Holy Saturday spaces.
You know the weight of the stones that feel immovable in our lives. You see the sealed tombs where we’ve buried our hopes. You understand the exhaustion of waiting without answers. Thank you that even when the world saw only a corpse wrapped in linen, you were working your greatest miracle. Help us to believe that you’re working even now, especially when we can’t see evidence of your hand.
We confess our impatience for Sunday morning. Our desire to skip the waiting and the wondering. Our tendency to view silence as absence rather than activity. Lord Jesus, you endured the ultimate Holy Saturday so that our dark Saturdays would never be the final word. We cling to your promise that joy comes in the morning, even when the night feels endless.
Give us courage to sit in the dust of our doubts without abandoning hope. Plant the tree’s wisdom deep in our spirits – that what appears dead may be secretly preparing to sprout.
And most of all, remind us with each sunrise that you are the God who specializes in rolling away stones that we cannot budge.
In the name of the One who made death itself a temporary condition, Amen.
“If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.” — Job 14:14
Josh Cehulik 