The day after.
I tend to cast on Mary and the disciples the feelings I’ve experienced after a loved one’s death. Anguish. Heartache. Sadness…
I imagine them wiping restless sleep from swollen eyes and going about the day absentmindedly, hoping above hope to wake up from the nightmare of the day before.
Mary and the other mothers had already gotten together the spices they’d take to the tomb, but it was the Sabbath. They couldn’t go and do anything to finish preparing His body according to traditional burial customs. So add a little angst in with the mindless motions of the day as they wrestled the instinct to nurture against the limitations of the law.
Angst or not, though, they obeyed. On the Sabbath, they rested. Did they also worship?
Maybe they couldn’t find any words and just sat quietly in the synagogue, tears gently streaming down their faces. What if they felt like screaming at the top of their lungs, raging at the God who’d promised a Messiah but didn’t bother showing up to rescue the one they’d believed He’d sent? Could be they doubted everything they’d ever thought true about God. They might’ve even begged Him to make Himself known, to shine even a tiny bit of light into the darkness.
Or maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep inside their hearts, Mary, the other mothers, and the disciples still believed. Maybe they clung to the sliver of hope that was the last truth they knew to be true – God had promised a Savior. He would keep His word.
We don’t really know what they were thinking. What we do know is they did the only thing they could do in the in-between.
They waited…
