Today is Saturday, the day before Easter, and I’m wondering what Saturday was like for the women disciples of Jesus two thousand years ago who had just experienced the unthinkable.
Sunday's coming
Their Lord, this amazing teacher whom they believed was the Messiah (Christ), the Son of God, the Hope of Israel—this man who had healed them, taught them, forgiven them, accepted them, who had treated them as valuable members of his ministry, who had inspired their love and devotion—had been arrested, tried, and sentenced to the cross. Everything they understood about him, all the things they had hoped for because of him, now made no sense. He was gone. How could this have happened?
The Gospel of Luke simply tells us that these women “rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment” (Luke 23:56). I bet you can imagine how miserable that Saturday was for them.
The female disciples of Jesus had been deeply affected by the crucifixion of Jesus. Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopas, Salome, the mother of James and John, Mary the mother of Jesus and her sister were all there. The Gospel of Matthew tells that many women who had followed Jesus from Galilee were there with him in Jerusalem that fateful Friday (Matthew 26:55), and they followed him every step of the way:
