¹ “Come, let us return to the LORD.
       He has torn us to pieces
       but he will heal us;
       he has injured us
       but he will bind up our wounds.

 ² After two days he will revive us;
       on the third day he will restore us,
       that we may live in his presence.

 ³ Let us acknowledge the LORD;
       let us press on to acknowledge him.
       As surely as the sun rises,
       he will appear;
       he will come to us like the winter rains,
       like the spring rains that water the earth.”

~ Hosea 6:1-3

After the rabble and agony of the previous day, the Sabbath following the crucifixion of Jesus was penetratingly quiet. There are times when silence is louder than any cacophony. This day was one of those.

Disciples of Jesus, having stolen away into hiding to avoid being accused and punished as one of the “King of the Jews'” followers…wondered, “What now?” Hopes dashed to pieces.

If Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was at all an intention to force the hand of the Messiah, to hurry him to bring on the kingdom of God on the earth, by Saturday the answer was final.

“No.”

Despairing, Judas surrendered his neck to a rope hung from a tree, for sin without forgiveness brings death.

Loving, Jesus willingly gave his life to the nails on another tree, for a sin-debt paid brings life.

On that Saturday, there was a vast empty echoing silence for those who didn’t yet fathom the significance.

Despair, doubt…

Have you ever hoped in the Lord and wondered at his apparent delay? Like Mary and Martha, perplexed by Jesus’ seeming nonchalance about the urgency of their brother’s illness…Lazarus was in the grave, body grown cold, all hope gone. Then, and only then, Jesus came and promised the impossible, the unthinkable–that they would yet see the manifestation of Resurrection and Life.

Sometimes, the greatest redemptions of life are birthed during the agony of delay.

The disciples waited. Watched. Maybe, even, prayed.

Silence.

Did any of them remember, in those long moments that passed, that Jesus promised he would come to them? As surely as the spring rains. As surely as the sun that rises.

He promises he will come.

Practically Speaking: Do you ever feel like you have been working so hard, maybe for years, to be free from tyranny to unhealthy eating and thinking and living? Do you wonder why God delays in lifting the turmoil from your life? Prayerfully consider–is it possible that this delay is a birthing of something greater in you than you might ever dare to imagine?