Rooster crows.
Doves cry.
Hammers ring.
People jeer.
Voice cries out.
Thunder echoes.
Stone scrapes.
{deafening silence}
Stone scrapes.
Doves cry.
One weeps.
One speaks.
People cheer.
It’s Saturday. The day bracketed between death and resurrection, between gravity and eternity. The Sabbath – a day linking the stories of old and new covenant. A hushed day in scripture. I wonder what a day of deafening silence must have sounded like. Yesterday, there were nails and jeering crowds and a sky turned stormy and a temple veil ripping from sky to earth. Yesterday, there were oils and herbs and a shroud and a tomb. Tomorrow there will be an angel and a stone rolled away and a shroud folded neatly as if to say, “thank you for your hospitality.” But tomorrow hasn’t come yet. The promises have been made – that the grave is merely borrowed, that the yesterday followed by the tomorrow mean mercy and grace breathe for all who need breath, that there will be life greater than life.
But promises are hard to hear when standing in the brackets.
What did that Sabbath sound like? Did it sound like any other day? Or was there a silence that was not just heard but felt in the bones of all who breathed. When doves sang their haunting song on that Saturday to awaken the dawn, did it quicken hearts? When His name was whispered, were prayers whispered in response? In the deafening silence, could hope be heard?
Today, in this day that still lives between the brackets of gravity and eternity, I pray for hearts to always be quickened, to hear whispered reminders of life greater than life and hope beyond hope. I pray for Sabbath to be felt in every breath. I pray for promise.
Come Lord Jesus. Selah.
What do you pray for in the days that live between the brackets?