A Silent Saturday Devotional – The Day God Was Silent

Bible Passages

Matthew 27:57–66 (WEB)

When evening had come, a rich man from Arimathaea, named Joseph, who himself was also Jesus’ disciple, came. He went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given up. Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut out in the rock. He rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb and departed. Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb.

Now on the next day, which was the day after the Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together to Pilate, saying, “Sir, we remember what that deceiver said while he was still alive: ‘After three days I will rise again.’ Command therefore that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest perhaps his disciples come at night and steal him away, and tell the people, ‘He is risen from the dead;’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard. Go, make it as secure as you can.” So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone.

1 Peter 3:18–20 (WEB)

Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who before were disobedient, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

Ephesians 4:8–10 (WEB)

Therefore he says, “When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.” Now this, “he ascended” — what is it but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.

What Is Silent Saturday?

Silent Saturday is the seventh day of Holy Week, the day between the crucifixion and the resurrection. Jesus was in the tomb. The disciples were scattered, grieving, and hiding behind locked doors. The chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate to request a guard for the tomb. From the outside it looked like everything was over. It is called Silent Saturday because it is a day of waiting and apparent absence – the day when heaven seemed to say nothing at all. But silence is not the same as inactivity. And God’s apparent absence is not the same as His abandonment.

Devotional

The disciples did not know it was Silent Saturday.

They had no name for it. They had no framework for it. What they had was the raw reality of the day after the crucifixion. Their Rabbi was dead, their hopes had collapsed, and the Sabbath had begun. Jewish law required rest. So they rested, in grief and confusion and fear, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. The women who had watched the burial knew where the tomb was and planned to return after the Sabbath with spices to properly prepare the body. That was all there was. A plan to anoint a dead man.

Peter had denied Jesus three times before the rooster crowed, exactly as Jesus had said he would. Judas had already gone out and hanged himself. The rest of the disciples had fled at the arrest. John had stood at the cross, but the others had scattered. Now they were behind locked doors, afraid that what had happened to Jesus might happen to them.

This is the landscape of Silent Saturday. Grief. Fear. Confusion. The complete apparent failure of everything they had believed and followed for three years.

Meanwhile the chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate. Their concern was practical. They remembered Jesus had said He would rise after three days, and they wanted to make sure the tomb was secured so the disciples could not steal the body and claim a resurrection. Pilate gave them a guard and they sealed the stone. From their perspective they were closing the last chapter of a problem. The tomb was sealed. The matter was settled. The threat was contained.

They were more right than they knew about the significance of what was in that tomb. And more wrong than they could have imagined about their ability to contain it.