Here's the funny thing. In the great swirl of events that took place during the final week of Jesus' life, Wednesday is a blank slate.
On Palm Sunday, the Sunday immediately preceding resurrection day, our Savior entered Jerusalem to shouts of "Hosanna!" on a borrowed donkey.
On Monday, he famously cleared the temple in Jerusalem of the merchants who made it impossible for the gentiles to worship in its outer courts.
On Tuesday, Jesus gave the storied Olivet discourse to a crowd gathered on the Mount of Olives, just outside the city of Jerusalem.
On Thursday, he took his last Passover meal with his disciples, washing their feet and predicting his death, and he was betrayed and arrested.
On Friday that death came to be: Jesus was crucified like a common criminal and his dead body removed from the cross and quickly placed in a borrowed tomb.
On Saturday Roman soldiers guarded his body, and when the Jewish sabbath ended, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea tended his body before the tomb was sealed. You know the rest. On Sunday he rose from the dead and is living still.
But Wednesday was silent. The Bible doesn't tell us what Jesus did that day. Wednesday is glaringly vacant on the "Events of Holy Week" charts.
If you're like me, you don't like holes in your outline, or unfilled blanks in your fill-in-the-blank worksheet. You don't like not knowing. But the longer I've walked with Jesus, the more comfortable I've become with silence. With not knowing. With trusting that even when I can't see anything happening...things are happening. Maybe not "breaking news" things, or "shout it from the rooftop" things. But things that are nonetheless deep and true and lasting. Silence is never empty with God. It's just silence. And it's always temporary.
Welcome to the idea of Silent Wednesday. For most of us, Wednesday is a hump day, a marker that we are more than halfway through the week. We may not know what is going on, but God always does--and we can be sure that whatever is quietly "in the works" is for our good and for his glory. Stay tuned. Sunday's just around the bend.
God, my shepherd!
I don't need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
you let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction.(Psalm 23: 1-3, The Message)
On Palm Sunday, the Sunday immediately preceding resurrection day, our Savior entered Jerusalem to shouts of "Hosanna!" on a borrowed donkey.
On Monday, he famously cleared the temple in Jerusalem of the merchants who made it impossible for the gentiles to worship in its outer courts.
On Tuesday, Jesus gave the storied Olivet discourse to a crowd gathered on the Mount of Olives, just outside the city of Jerusalem.
On Thursday, he took his last Passover meal with his disciples, washing their feet and predicting his death, and he was betrayed and arrested.
On Friday that death came to be: Jesus was crucified like a common criminal and his dead body removed from the cross and quickly placed in a borrowed tomb.
On Saturday Roman soldiers guarded his body, and when the Jewish sabbath ended, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea tended his body before the tomb was sealed. You know the rest. On Sunday he rose from the dead and is living still.
But Wednesday was silent. The Bible doesn't tell us what Jesus did that day. Wednesday is glaringly vacant on the "Events of Holy Week" charts.
If you're like me, you don't like holes in your outline, or unfilled blanks in your fill-in-the-blank worksheet. You don't like not knowing. But the longer I've walked with Jesus, the more comfortable I've become with silence. With not knowing. With trusting that even when I can't see anything happening...things are happening. Maybe not "breaking news" things, or "shout it from the rooftop" things. But things that are nonetheless deep and true and lasting. Silence is never empty with God. It's just silence. And it's always temporary.
Welcome to the idea of Silent Wednesday. For most of us, Wednesday is a hump day, a marker that we are more than halfway through the week. We may not know what is going on, but God always does--and we can be sure that whatever is quietly "in the works" is for our good and for his glory. Stay tuned. Sunday's just around the bend.
God, my shepherd!
I don't need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
you let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction.(Psalm 23: 1-3, The Message)
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