The Day Death Held God
I’ve been thinking a lot about Saturday.
Not just any Saturday—that Saturday. The one after the Cross, before the sunrise and the stone rolled away. The day where nothing happened. The day where hope was dead. The day where silence ruled.
That’s not usually the day we focus on. We jump from the sorrow of Friday to the celebration of Sunday and call it a weekend. But there’s something haunting and holy about the middle—the in-between. The tomb was full. The world was empty. And for a whole day, God laid still.
I don’t think I ever really pictured Him like that before. Cold. Stiff. Wrapped tight in linen, tucked into rock. No pulse. No warmth. No breath fogging up the dark air around Him.
It’s uncomfortable to imagine.
There’s a part of me that wants to say He was “resting.” Or that maybe it wasn’t really death because He knew He was coming back. But that cheapens it. That makes the Cross theatrical, like it was all for show. And it wasn’t.
He didn’t fake death. He became it.
And there He lay—Jesus, Son of God, Word made flesh, Creator of atoms and oceans—completely still. Eyes shut. Muscles slack. Blood dried. Heaven’s champion, silent as stone.
I imagine the tomb was still echoing with the sounds of yesterday. Whips. Mocking. The clink of nails. Screams. Earthquakes. Torn curtains. And then—quiet. That unbearable quiet.
I think about Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, awkwardly doing the most sacred work they’d ever done—cleaning the blood off the Lamb of God. I wonder if their hands shook. If they cried. If they apologized. If they even knew what they were touching.
And then they left Him there. Alone.
And nobody rushed to the tomb the next day. Because they weren’t expecting anything. No miracles. No angels. Just grief. Just silence.
I know what it feels like to live in Saturday. I’ve felt the stillness after a loss. The ache of prayers that go unanswered. The numb days where nothing makes sense, where everything good seems buried and gone.
And I wonder if part of what makes Sunday so beautiful is how long Saturday feels.
Because that’s the day that teaches us to wait. That forces us to ask, Is this it? Is it over? And it’s the day that God Himself stepped into—not to preach or heal or rise—but to simply lie there, wrapped in the finality of death, for us.
But even in that stillness, something was happening. Not a heartbeat. Not a breath. Not yet. But the countdown had begun. And while nobody else knew it, death itself was beginning to panic.
Because Sunday was coming.
And when He woke—whenever that moment was—it wasn’t a stretch or a yawn. It was life. Crashing back. Not borrowed breath but eternal power. Eyes opening with fire. Light splitting darkness. Atoms realigning. Skin warming. Glory filling a broken, once-dead body.
But I’ll save that part for tomorrow.
Today… I’m sitting in the silence. I’m remembering the cost. I’m holding space for the stillness that changed the world.
Because even in the grave—He was not defeated.
And Sunday?
Sunday is already on its way.
