Holy Week Saturday - Together in the dark

I don’t know if we can ever fully comprehend how the followers of Jesus felt the evening and day after He was crucified, died, and buried. We’ve read the next chapter. We know what’s about to happen. But they were living that day of darkness, and dreams were crushed.  

The book of Job gives us a glimpse of their despair:  “when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness” (Job 30:26).

The Gospels tell us very little of those dark hours. Yet the few scriptures there are reveal something special about them - they were together, almost never alone.

“The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment” (Luke 23:55-56).  

“Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:13).

“Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus...he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds” (John 19:38-39)

“...the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders...” (John 20:19)

The women came together. Two disciples traveled together. Joseph and Nicodemus buried Jesus together. Even after abandoning Jesus in the garden, the remaining apostles came together.

Even in the darkness, they understood the need to be with each other.

Perhaps, even with knowing the rest of the story, that is what we can learn when darkness comes. We need to be with each other.