Not So

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading titled Not So was written by Tim Gustafson. I wanted somehow to make it not so, lamented the man eulogizing a friend who died young. His words gave poignancy to humanity's ageless heart cry. Death stuns and scars us all.

We ache to undo what can't be undone. The longing to make it not so might well describe how Jesus' followers felt after his death. The Gospels say little about those awful hours, but they do record the actions of a few faithful friends. In Luke chapter 23, Joseph, a religious leader who secretly believed in Jesus, suddenly found the courage to ask Pilate for Jesus' body. Ponder for a moment what it would take to remove a body from a grisly crucifixion and tenderly prepare it for burial. Consider too the devotion and bravery of the women who stayed with Jesus every step of the way, even to the tomb. These followers weren't anticipating a resurrection. They were coming to terms with grief.

The chapter ends without hope, merely a somber. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes to embalm Jesus' body. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment. Little did they know the Sabbath intermission was setting the stage for history's most dramatic scene. Jesus was about to do the unimaginable.

He would make death itself not so. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Luke chapter 23, verses 49 through 56. But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things. Now, there was a man named Joseph, a member of the council, a good and upright man, who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth, and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin. The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it.

Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment. Let's pray. Father, today we pause to remember how it must have been that day between your son's crucifixion and his resurrection, so dark and hopeless. We're so grateful that he's reversed sin's curse for us. Thank you for loving us so much that you would allow your son to die in order to restore us to life. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening. I'm Stephen, and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.