A Heavy Holy Week (The Weight of the Wait)

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A Heavy Holy Week (The Weight of the Wait)

Can you feel it? The weight of sin weighing more and more heavily on this world we live in. What used to seem subtle now feels flagrant. Pure evil is on display in blatantly obvious ways. It is wearying, because it is so weighty.

But take heart, heaviness leads to holiness.

Those who cried of “Hosanna,” which literally means “save us,” on Palm Sunday, shouted “Crucify Him” days later. It’s a heaviness too hard to explain, and yet it leads to a holiness that will forever remain. He sealed the deal with a empty tomb at the end of a heavy, Holy Week.

The weight of the wait during Holy Week leads to the weight of Glory when our joy will be made complete. Jesus waited through the last week of His earthly life with the weight of His Father’s plan so heavy on His heart because it was all in His hands.

The triumphal entry on Palm Sunday led to the triumphal victory on Resurrection Sunday. Jesus’s final days. His cruel journey to the cross. His passionate plea with his final breath, “Father, forgive them.” His temporary time in the tomb giving way to eternal life because He triumphed over it all, once and for all, to deliver us all from sin, forgiving us for what had been harshly put on Him, reconciling us to the Father once again.

A story so heavy. A story so Holy. A story our finite minds will never fully comprehend, and yet our heavy hearts experience the weight of the wait again and again.

His sacrifice paid the ultimate price to lift that eternal weight off you and me. He set us free, if we just believe.

Same story. Same outcome. Same power. Same HOPE. A story that was foretold, fulfilled, retold, and revealed — giving NEW LIFE & HOPE to all who believe and are set free from sin.

Heavy and Holy. A wait in which the weight of our sin gives way to the weight of Glory.

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The Silence of Saturday Speaks a Message That‘s Loud and Clear.

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The Silence of Saturday Speaks a Message That‘s Loud and Clear.

“Just wait. I’m working. Take heart. My plan is unfolding.” A message He whispers often in the wait.

Good Friday was yesterday. Resurrection Sunday is tomorrow. But today is Silent Saturday. We wait. We pray. We sit in silence.

We’re not always comfortable with quiet, are we? It’s called “awkward silence” for a reason. For a talker (like myself), silence can test my sanity. I want to fill the silence with something. A solution. A sound of some sort, even if it’s not thought out or prayed about. Anything will do to silence the silence!

God has been speaking, in the silence, a message that’s loud and clear in my heart.

Seasons of silence should bring us to our knees. When we don’t hear God’s voice. When we don’t know what’s next. Pray. Surrender. Lay things down. Lift Him up.

When we sow seeds, we assume that posture — on our knees. We lay those seeds down. We surrender them. We bury them.

Yesterday, we remembered how Christ laid His life down for us. He surrendered. He was buried. His lifeless body was laid in a borrowed tomb. And they waited.

Just like we wait. In silence.

Good Friday does give way to Resurrection Sunday, but there’s a day in between. A wait. A pause. A process. And it is all good. And it is all for growth.

Time for the sowing to give way to growing. Time for the seed to take root. Time for the shoot to break through. Friday had to happen to give Sunday its power. But the wait in between was necessary for the work to be done and His will to be seen. Death had to occur for life to break through. Darkness had to have its fight in order to be defeated by the light!

He may have been buried on that day, but He did not stay that way. Three days later, the stone was rolled away. What He had done had taken root, making a heavenly route to a Holy God.

Sunday’s comin’, and our wait today is not in vain. The silence of Saturday speaks a message that’s loud and clear. It’s time to trust. Time to pray. A way is being made. Just wait. Take heart. Resurrection, Redemption, and Reconciliation are on the other side of the silence, and it’s about to get LOUD!

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