The Middle
“Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”” - Luke 23:20-21 NIV
The middle... The in between... The time between Jesus’s death on the cross and what we now know as His resurrection - the day He rose from the dead and lived again.
No one really knows what went on during that time. The Bible doesn’t really say. We can guess and hypothesize. We do know that at least some of the disciples and women were together. We know that many had scattered in fear and shame. All, most likely, were living in fear... fear of the future... fear of the Pharisees... fear of the Roman guard...fear that what happened to Jesus might happen to them as well.
Somehow they had forgotten what Jesus had said about His death and His returning... And what would be His victory over death.
Their mind filled with images of the days before. The upper room, the washing of their feet, the bread, the wine... Gethsemane and being overwhelmed with sleep during Jesus time of prayer and need... Then the fateful kiss... the betrayal...the knife and healed ear...
And the Roman guard... Jesus going peacefully... His beating and mocking...Then their own denial and scattering... and the rooster’s crows and the hiding in darkness... and the trial, the whips, and the cross...
The image of Him on that cross... that sickening image. That image never fading... and those chants... those chants that still echo in their ears and hearts...
“Crucify Him... Crucify Him... Crucify Him...”
And then the tomb... that borrowed grave... sealed and blocked by a giant stone... guarded by an elite group of Roman soldiers.
Tears flowing... Mary’s heart broken... Tears that won’t seem to stop coming... and the guilt and the shame of not doing more to help Him, to protect Him, to stand with Him.
“We thought He was the One, the Messiah, the Promised One... now He’s gone. What shall become of us?”
The hours... the middle...the in between... the day not like any other.
Shock, fear, prayer, fellowship... sharing of memories... and maybe even somehow in the midst of it all, an inkling of a reminder of the hope that He had shared.
That day... in the middle... in the in between.
Keep the Faith... Carpe Diem
“And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.”
- Mark 15:46 ESV
