You Can’t Rush Resurrection

Friday has happened. Sunday is coming. Saturday is… silent? Awkward? Uncomfortable?

The tomb is sealed, but you have the whole story in your hands. You know resurrection is on the horizon. But still—you’re here. In the in-between. In the tension. In the waiting. And it’s excruciating.

There are no popular Holy Saturday hymns. No feast. No proclamation. Just a buried Savior, a day full of grief, silence, and stillness. We spend the day waiting on Sunday.

But the reality is—most of life happens in the Saturday seasons. The middle spaces. The aching questions. The long pauses between what was and what will be.

But... what if we can’t have Sunday morning without fully embracing Saturday? What if resurrection only becomes resurrection when we’ve felt the stillness of the grave? What if God can only do something new in us if we’re willing to linger in the grief?

Holy Saturday teaches us just as much as Good Friday and Easter Sunday do. When Jesus went to the Cross on Good Friday—when He gave up His final breath and declared “It is finished”—victory was already accomplished. Sin was defeated. Death was broken. The veil was torn. And yet… He stayed in the tomb.

Jesus had every ability in Himself to rise immediately. When He was placed in the tomb, He could have gotten up, shaken off the linens, and walked right out of there is the same day. But He didn’t.

In staying in the tomb, Jesus teaches us a few sacred things.

Before new life comes, Death always comes first.

We cannot step into Sunday without going through the sorrow of Friday and the silence of Saturday. We cannot walk in resurrection without first walking through surrender. We cannot move into holiness without the death of our earthly desires. We cannot move into the will of God without releasing our personal plans. We cannot move into the fullness of relationship with Christ until we let die whatever hinders it.

We cannot find new life, until our old life goes to the tomb.

And that death may happen in an instant, but healing and transformation takes time. Anyone who has faced a deep sorrow for the loss of a loved one knows that grief is a process to be walked through.

So if you’ve laid down a distraction, a relationship, a dream, or a season of your life…And you’re still waiting in the quiet…

If you’re still sitting in the stillness of Saturday…

Know this: His delay is not His denial. God is still at work in the tomb. And resurrection is coming.

The Saturday season is where we are called to deep trust and reliances on the promises of God. We find ourselves standing in the shoes of the disciples on that day. Confused, desperate, but full of hope for what their Master has promised them. They didn’t know exactly how the story was going to unfold, they just knew what they were promised, and they tried their best to trust in what Jesus had told them.

This is what we, too, are called to do in these in-between seasons.

Because without the grief…without the silence…without the pruning…we do not learn to trust. We don’t learn what it means to not lean on our own understanding. We don’t learn how to be fully, wholly dependent on God.

And there is great loss in not learning those things.Because the fruit of Saturday is not just resurrection. It’s intimacy. It’s trust. It’s the slow shaping of a soul that knows—even in the dark—God is still faithful.

On the morning of the Resurrection, when Jesus finally reveals Himself to those He loves, Jesus doesn’t return with fanfare or spectacle. He doesn’t rise with a throne or trumpet. Instead, He appears personally.

He speaks Mary’s name in the garden.

He invites Thomas to touch His scars.

He walks besides the disciples and breaks bread.

He comes to them personally. Because the whole process of Resurrection is deeply personal to Jesus.

He doesn’t just want your old life to die. He wants to raise a new life from the dead. He wants to meet your brokenness. He wants to answer your doubts. He wants to call you by name. He wants to show up in the exact way that you need.

Resurrection is an important process. It does not happen instantly in our life. We must grieve the death of our old life, we must come to understand our complete and utter reliance on Christ, and we must fully embrace the personal relationship that He so desires to have with each and every one of us.

So if you’re in a Saturday season—or when you find yourself in one, because you will—remember this:

The silence is not the end. The tomb is not the finale. The stillness does not mean He's absent.

Resurrection is coming. And when it does, it will be personal. It will be powerful. And it will be proof that even in the waiting, the grieiving, the silence... He was working all along.