Holy Saturday is the pause no one wanted. It’s the day between, the day after the worst thing has happened, and before anyone knows how the story will end. We know what comes on Sunday, but the disciples didn’t. Their world had cracked open. Jesus was gone. The crowds had scattered. The silence must have been deafening.
Scripture doesn’t say much about what the disciples did on that day. That almost makes it harder. Luke tells us, “On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56). It’s such a simple line, tucked between the agony of Friday and the miracle of Sunday. But in that one sentence, you see a kind of faith most of us don’t talk about. They waited. They grieved. They obeyed, even when it felt like all hope was lost.
Can you imagine what it took, after everything, to keep the Sabbath? To do the ordinary thing, quietly, while your heart is breaking? Some, like the women who followed Jesus from Galilee, showed up anyway. They watched where his body was laid (Mark 15:47). They went home to prepare spices and perfumes. Maybe their hands shook as they worked. Maybe they didn’t sleep. But they did what love does: they kept showing up, even when the reasons for hope seemed to have run out.
Sometimes faith looks like waiting in the dark, not running away. Sometimes it’s just keeping the next commandment, making preparations for a body you think is gone forever. The Psalms echo this kind of ache, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1). On Holy Saturday, it’s easy to feel forgotten. Easy to wonder if any of it mattered, if you misunderstood the whole thing, or if you’re just left with an empty tomb and a world that hasn’t changed.
But even in that silence, God was at work. The story wasn’t over. The women who prepared the spices didn’t know they’d be the first witnesses to the resurrection. The disciples in hiding didn’t know their fear would turn to joy. No one could see it yet, but the promise was still alive, just hidden under the weight of loss.
Holy Saturday is for all of us who are waiting. For anyone who’s lived through a day when it felt like the light was gone and nothing would ever be the same. For those who keep showing up anyway, who do the next right thing, who wait and pray and hold on. The world is full of almost mornings, those in-between spaces where hope feels foolish. But God is there, too, even when we can’t see it. The stone is about to roll away.
So if you find yourself somewhere between heartbreak and hope, you’re not alone. The disciples didn’t know the ending. But they held on, in their own quiet ways. And that was enough. As Paul would later write, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Sometimes that faith is loud and confident. Other times it’s just staying put, hands full of spices, waiting for dawn.
We love you all
Randy and Susan
