Welcome back to another podcast of Struggling Well. we're actually recording this on the Monday after Easter. Easter and in world news, the pope just died. but more than that, I coming off this past week which we call Holy Week and Easter, the celebration of Jesus resurrection, I was captured by the thought of the Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter where nothing happens or at least that's what it appears to be. there's a silence that maybe to the disciples was deafening
because it was the sense that it was all over. later on in the gospels, we're told after Jesus resurrection when he appeared to them, they had locked themselves in a room for fear of the Jews. And I get it, Suzi. He had died on a cross. They had seen it. He'd been buried. Joseph of Arya and Nicodemus claimed the body and put him in a tomb and then sealed the tomb up. and where was God? I'm sure there was some sense of how the silence was interpreted and it caused me to wonder how many silent Saturdays have we had using that phrase just to describe the times in our lives when things have not gone the way we wanted them to go and then it was met with silence
when I imagine as you were filling out that story I imagine the fear and the disappointment. They were expecting something from Jesus. But I also am thinking about that they were with him for the time that he was on doing his earthly ministry and he was telling them about who he was, who he was sent from and what he was going to do to redeem and that he had to be a sacrifice. But they didn't understand it, right?
And rightly so. They didn't understand it. And so then everything comes to a culmination when and he dies on the cross and they think it is over. Jesus said from the cross it is finished and there's a lot of interesting things around that I think fascinating but for them it felt finished and we know that before after his resurrection when he was walking on the road to Emmas disciples of his were walking and they were despondent and the fact that those men and probably women as well were up in that room behind a locked door were fearing for their lives and that silence of were they hoping that Jesus would be resurrected or were they too despondent to look for it? I don't know.
Well, I mean, again, as we read scripture and try to piece together what we know the outcome, so that so it makes this hard. We know that he was
but the women went to the tomb that Sunday morning to anoint his body. So, they were fully expecting who was still going to be dead in the grave. and I just, you know, I think about other profound times of silence. How about the 400 years of silence between the end of the Old Testament and the words in the New Testament? I mean, that
you talk about a long period of time. But here's the thing. I think we interpret sometimes silence like the God doesn't seem to be answering our prayers or we don't understand why God has allowed something to happen. We silence gets interpreted as he's gone
or he doesn't care
versus he's working all the time. We just can't see it.
Right. We think that silence means stillness. And there are so many places in scripture where God speaks and then they don't hear anything. And like you said, the 400 years between the Old Testament, New Testament, you know, imagine Mary being the recipient of the first words about what was to come after silence. How did she say to God, you know, it whatever is your will, let it be done. When she's not heard anything now, they've had
the words of the prophets and but and the stories, the real stories from the Old Testament, but there's that place of and we've referred to this before, that place of in between when we don't know what God is going to do and it everything looks like it is completely lost. And that has come home to me recently as I've been thinking in terms of kids. And maybe this is a far reach, but I've been thinking in terms of kids and how like our own daughters, we have three daughters, they're all grown, and they all have their own families. But I can remember days when they were in the midst of their lives as teenagers, young adults, and thinking, "This is it. This is as good as it's going to get. Their the issues that they're struggling with will never go away. God, why don't you intervene? And I found myself struggling to wait to be still enough and wait for what God was going to do. And so, we have these grown daughters now. And I'm thinking, why couldn't I trust God in the silence when they were, you know, they weren't terrible kids, but they were teenagers and they wrecked some havoc and made some terrible choices. But I didn't believe in the middle of that God was up to anything. And so his silence many times felt like you're doing nothing. It's still.
Yeah. And we're sitting here in our kitchen and I look over on the wall and there's a portion of a verse from the Psalms. Be still and know that I am God. And I think in that stillness and in that silence, the idea that knowing that he is God is not just acknowledging him as God. It's acknowledging him as the one who's in control and the one whose plan is going to be unfolded not on my timetable but on his timetable. And think about this, the mercy of God. And I see it this way. So, Peter has denied him.
Mhm.
all the disciples like, you know, leave. They're all run away, I guess. Is it James who's still there?
John.
John is still there.
and Jesus appears in that room to those men, some of which had fallen asleep in the garden, some Peter who denied him, the other disciples that scattered. But he comes into that room and he speaks peace to them.
Like, so that kind of gets me. I think about the mercy that he showed them and compassion and forgiveness that he showed them in that room by coming to them, these men that had this ragged group of men that sometimes followed, sometimes didn't, were impetuous and did dumb things, questioned him, wondered, you know, who is going to sit at the right and who is going to sit at the left. He comes into that room and gives him himself again.
Yeah. Yeah. And so, as you're listening, we don't know whether you're going through what you would call your silent Saturday right now or things going on in your world and in your life. and you just want God to answer. You want God to show up. And we want you to know cuz we believe this, he is there. Even in the silence that you can't perceive, he's there and he's working and he's doing it according to his plan and his will. And can you trust him? Can you be still and know that he is God and give over the control of life to him because he's the one who cares for you, who loves you, who wants for you what is his perfect will. Have a great week. Thanks for joining us. To learn more about the Struggling Well podcast, visit tandemspirituality. com.