The Long Saturday

It's like that long Saturday between your death and the rising day where no one wrote a word, wondered is this the end - "Valleys Fill First", Caedmon's Call

Hopes dashed. Dreams shattered. Crestfallen. Hollow eyes, cotton mouths, and shell-shocked voices.

You can see it on election night at the campaign headquarters of the losing candidate. You can feel it when your favorite sports team snatches defeat from the jaws of victory (most memorable sports moments for me the last few years were Giants vs. Angels in the World Series, and Derek Fisher's 0.4 shot against the Spurs).

This, I think, is probably just a whisper of the state the disciples of Jesus Christ found themselves in over 2000 years ago:

They had just spent 3 years tying their hopes and dreams to a man who they thought would become king.

They had quit jobs, alienated families, and literally had nowhere else to turn and no place to return to.

After seeing their Master leave a trail of blood from a whipping post in Jerusalem, along the Via Dolorosa, and all the way to Golgotha, life probably didn't have much more meaning. There's no real written account of what happened that long Saturday after the brutal execution of Jesus.

Then Sunday came...