I wrote this on Saturday. Today, Monday, I am feeling more human - and was yesterday too - but my impatience to get back fully to what I do best - playing with children - keeps setting me back a bit. I wrote this primarily for the Zac's Facebook page. Read on!
It's a beautiful Easter Saturday and I'm on holiday visiting my grandchildren in Italy. I should be having a wonderful time but, after trying to ignore it for three days, I'm in bed with the worst cough/cold/throat infection I have had for years. I am impatient to be well and to play with my grandchildren. It's not fair!
So lying here feeling sorry for myself I started thinking about the first Easter Saturday.
I imagine the disciples were also thinking it's not fair. The man they'd put their trust in, the man they'd given up everything to follow, hadn't led the rebellion they'd been expecting. Instead he'd been hung on a cross to die. Their future, their hopes all dying with him. How did they feel?
Angry, sorrowful, disappointed, hurt, frightened, lost, uncertain, wondering what it had all been for. I can imagine Peter wandering around punching walls in a mix of pain and confusion.
And what about the women followers? Surely broken-hearted grief. It was love that saw them kneeling at the foot of the cross when the men had run away, it was love that hurried them to the tomb to prepare his body for the spices. And it was obedience to the laws of the Sabbath that meant they had to leave him for a day before returning on the Sunday morning to apply the spices.
How black, how awful must that day have been. Compelled to rest, worship God - question him in their hearts - why, God, why? - and wait. Not even able to do what they wanted, what was right, they just had to wait.
They didn't know what joy would be awaiting them on Sunday; all they had to cling on to was what Jesus had told them, words he'd said, promises he had made them. But now he'd gone, they were alone, and they had to wait to perform their last service for him.
Maybe sometimes that's what God calls us to do. Wait for an answer to prayer, wait for a soul to be saved, a life to be changed, an illness to take its course, wait.
I'm not good at waiting. It's something I need to practise and maybe Easter Saturday is a good time to do it.
4 comments:
I hope you're fully recovered soon! There's nothing worse than being sick on holiday.
I can only imagine how you feel being sick when you are there with your little sweeties. Feel better soon!
Waiting is the hardest part of life. And I've had a few hard parts, but taking action is so much easier. Get well soon, the children need you!
A lovely reflection. Hope you're much better by now.
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