We can ponder Hans Holbein’s painting of Jesus lying in the tomb. But can we fathom the sorrow, the guilt, doubts, disappointment, and fear those who knew and loved Jesus felt between his burial on Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday?

God could have raised him immediately. But God waited. And we wait. We have all found ourselves in the throes of some numb day, our own Holy Saturday. We’ve endured Good Friday, the losses – but there’s no new life yet.

“Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31). “I wait for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning” (Psalm 130:5). Saturday was, for them, the Sabbath, a day of rest. Jesus rested in the tomb; God rested in heaven. And so, with the disciples, and Jesus’ mother, we wait this day, and every day, trusting the God we cannot see, resting in the hope that Easter really is coming.