“The Third Day” by Brian Flanagan, Fiat Ventures
Easter Sunday
Marshmallow Peep Jousting: Find a friend/sibling/parent, take 2 marshmallow peeps from your Easter basket, and put them on a paper plate facing each other. Write each player’s name next to his/her peep on the paper plate. Stick a toothpick in each peep, pointed toward the enemy peep. Put the pate in the microwave, and watch through the window as the peeps do battle. The peeps will expand, and one will be victorious over the other. What does that have to do with the Resurrection of Jesus?
Nothing really, it’s just a fun Easter morning activity. But once you get peep jousting out of the way and head to Mass, the real party begins. We celebrate Jesus Christ’s victory over sin and death, and his opening the gates of heaven for us.
This wasn’t an instant, microwaved, kind of victory though. It was more like a crock-pot victory. Jesus died on Good Friday, and he didn’t rise until Easter Sunday, the “Third Day”.
On Good Friday, not only did he not win a flashy victory, but it seemed to be the opposite. It seemed to everyone looking on that he had lost. Period. End of story. The majority of his followers had bailed on him already, and the ones who were there until the end thought all hope was lost now.
On Holy Saturday…not much happened. All those same feelings of despair and not knowing what to do next were still there.
But then Easter Sunday. The Third Day. Everything changed. Jesus rose from the dead, and their hope was restored. Jesus did win the victory on the Cross on Good Friday, but they didn’t realize it until Easter Sunday. God hadn’t revealed it to them yet.
Most days for us might seem like Holy Saturday moments. Maybe we’ve been praying for something for a while, and there’s no sign that God is doing anything about our problems. Maybe we’ve been waiting for God’s plan to unfold in our life and we don’t have any sense of what direction he wants us to go. Maybe we’ve even begun to lose hope over something.
But we need to remember that Easter Sunday came on the Third Day. Not forty-five minutes later on Good Friday. Sometimes we need to wait to find out what God has in store as an answer.
So we can trust that God hears our prayers and has already answered them in many ways, we just might have to wait a bit to find out how. Unlike the disciples though, we know how the story ends. We know that Jesus always comes through. So if we’re willing to wait and trust, we can have that “Easter Sunday” joy and peace, even in our Good Friday moments, and even in our Holy Saturday times of waiting. He is risen indeed, so let’s celebrate!