Silent Saturday is what many Christians have come to call the Saturday between Jesus’ death on Good Friday and His resurrection on Sunday. Today when we read the passages on Jesus’ brutal death on the cross, we get to read them with the knowledge that there is a resurrection on Sunday. This was not the case for Jesus’ disciples, though He had told on numerous occasions that He was going to be betrayed and would die in the hands of religious leaders but would be raised from the dead on the 3rd day. Their minds could simply not take in this glorious information (Mark 9:30-32). As a result, they experienced the most profound kind of disillusionment and grief when God in the flesh, their Messiah, had died (Luke 24:17-21).
Silent Saturday may be one of those days during Holy Week that may feel like it’s there to fill a gap until we get to glorious Resurrection Sunday. I believe that Silent Saturday is a glorious in-between that presents us with the wonderful opportunity to rest and reflect on Jesus’ finished work on the cross and to look forward to Resurrection Sunday and all that it means for our relationship with God. Though the Scripture does not tell us a great deal about what happened that day, it tells us enough to make meaningful observations that point us to goodness and sovereignty of God.
When He had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath.
John 19:30-31b
It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.
Luke 23:54
In these passages, we learn that Jesus died on a ‘Preparation Day’ (Good Friday) and the next day was to be a special ‘Sabbath’ (Saturday). This was because it was Passover week, a major Jewish Holiday instituted by God Himself to commemorate the first Passover where God had set the children of Israel free from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 12-14).
In the Scripture, the Sabbath was also a weekly holy day of rest. Its origin goes back to the very beginning at creation. When God finished His 6-day work of creation, we’re told in Genesis 2:2-3 that He rested on the 7th day and declared it holy. He later on made the Sabbath one of the 10 Commandants which He gave to the Children of Israel after He led them out of Egypt (Exodus 20:8-11). The Sabbath started at sundown on Fridays and ended at sundown on Saturdays. Given that the Sabbath was a day of rest, it was customary for the Jews to make preparations on a Friday to make sure they would have no work to do on the Sabbath and would rest as God had commanded. This is why Friday was also called a Preparation Day.
So, Jesus died on Preparation Day, the day after the Passover (Holy Thursday). He was buried in Joseph of Arimathea’s caved tomb (the tombs of the times) and a stone had been place at the mouth of it. To make matters worse, the Pharisees (who were the religious leaders of His day and had instigated His death) remembered that He said He was going to be raised from the dead. So, on that special Sabbath day, they asked the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate (the Jews were under Roman dominion) to secure the tomb by placing a seal on the stone at its mouth and by having guards to keep watch in front of it (Matthew 27:62-66).
This is Silent Saturday, the day after Jesus’ finished work on the cross. He has been dead and buried for a day. His tomb has been sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers. His disciples are mourning His loss. In the Gospels, we’re told that they had been with Him for about 3 years and had seen Him do miracles on many Sabbaths. On this special Sabbath though, they would have to rest and wait another day to see the Lord of the Sabbath raised from the dead.
In all four Gospels, Jesus’ relationship with the Sabbath was very interesting and is definitely worth looking into. He got in the habit of healing people on many a Sabbath and this greatly upset the pharisees. Due to misplaced zeal for the Law (they seem to have placed God’s Law above God!), they had lost the true meaning of the Scripture and didn’t recognise their Lord when He came (John 5:39-40). They seem to have turned God’s gift of rest into something that was as soulless as working nonstop. A gift of rest and its blessed prohibition from work had now turned into a prohibition from doing good (Luke 13:10-16).
When faced with opposition during one particular Sabbath, Jesus asked this profound question to the pharisees “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save a life or to destroy it? (Luke 6:9). In another incident on a different Sabbath, Jesus had told them that He was the Lord of Sabbath and that the Sabbath had been given as a gift to mankind (Mark 2:23-28).
As a matter of fact, Genesis 2:2-3 (which I’ve mentioned above) points us to the reality that Jesus was Lord of the Sabbath from the very beginning! As God the Son, He was there at creation (John 1:1-3) and had rested on the 7th day after completing His work of creation, just as on Preparation Day He breathed His last after crying out ‘It is finished!’, having successfully done away with our sins. Though absent from the body, Jesus was still Lord of the Sabbath on Silent Saturday. And on that Special Sabbath, it’s as though He was once more enacting the answer to His question to the Pharisees. It was indeed lawful to do good on the Sabbath; in His death He was doing the ultimate good, He was saving our lives.
Whether you are in a season of abundance or profound disillusionment, remember that Silent Saturday was part of God’s sovereign plan to save us. Remember the disciples’ disillusionment; they were in pain and the resurrection was not on their radar despite Jesus’ numerous predictions about it.
That special Sabbath was probably their worst of Sabbath to date. And in some ways, I like to believe that perhaps Jesus being dead during Sabbath set them up for the healthy opportunity to sit with their debilitating grief. They rested in obedience to God’s commandments (Luke 23:56). Perhaps this Silent Saturday is an opportunity for us to rest and remember that God can be up to the most glorious things in our lives when all hope seems lost, and that Jesus is our ultimate hope and our firm foundation in this life and forevermore.
What the disciples had yet to discover was that they were just hours away from waking up to the glorious truth of Jesus’ resurrection and from becoming His faithful witnesses. Resurrection Sunday would change everything for them and for us too!