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EN(dur)ANCE by Robin Gudal

I believe we are all ready for spring ’21 — the anticipation likely greater this year than years past. I am fatigued from a world-wide pandemic; I am often disillusioned with the unkindness experienced in our world and I am ready for new beginnings. The emerging of new life; the colors of green, yellow, pastels popping, sunshine and warmth.

Easter is quickly approaching; just like spring is upon us, are you ready? The snow covers things we often forget in the winter months, the mess that lies beneath. Under that melting snow, we face the unfinished projects, lapses. Spring reveals catch up, clean up, preparing for the freshness of another season.

Are our hearts ready for Easter 2021? I ran across a perspective recently on Easter I had not considered; John Ortberg (“Who Is This Man”) shares:

“This isn’t Sunday (Resurrection Day). This isn’t Friday, this is Saturday. The day after this and the day before that. The day a prayer gets prayed but there is no answer on the way. It is a strange day, this in-between day. In between despair and joy. In between confusion and clarity. In between bad news and good news. In between darkness and light. Everyone knows Saturday.

All three-day stories share a structure. On the first day there is trouble, and on the third day there is deliverance. On the second day, there is nothing. The problem with third-day stories is, you don’t know it’s a third-day story until the third day.

Silence happens on Saturday. After trouble hits you, after the agony of Friday, you call out to God. “Hear me! Listen to me! Respond to me! Do something! Say something! Rescue!”

From a human standpoint, we think of the miraculous day as Sunday, the day the man Jesus is Risen from the dead. I wonder if, from Heaven’s standpoint, the great miracle isn’t on Saturday. When Jesus is born, the skies are filled with the heavenly hosts praising God because that baby is Emmanuel, God with us. Somehow God in a manger, somehow God in a stable, somehow God on earth. Now on Saturday the Angels look down and see what? God in a tomb. The miracle of Sunday is that a dead man lives. The miracle of Saturday is that the sternal Son of God lies dead.

Jesus Christ defeats our great enemy death not by proclaiming his invincibility over it but by submitting himself to it. If you can find this Jesus in a grave, if you can find him in death, if you can find him in hell, where can you not find him? Where will he not turn up?”

Jesus has risen; indeed, he lives. He lives in my heart, my life, and he lives for each of us!

Robin (Beckman) Gudal is intentional in life, a wife, momma, nana, friend and a flawed and imperfect follower of Jesus.