Yesterday we gathered our children around and read the story of the crucifixion as we recognized the significance of Good Friday.  Tomorrow we will finish the story as we look to the celebration of Resurrection Sunday.  And today is the day in between.

Do you ever wonder what the day in between the crucifixion and the resurrection was like for those who followed Christ?  Everything can change in just a moment.  Their devastating journey began on Thursday night when Jesus was arrested.  He was taken while they prayed in the garden and the world was forever changed.

A late night arrest led to a rushed trial and finally to a long march to Calvary on Friday by a beaten and bloodied Savior.  It was a horrific event where God Himself turned His back on His very son because of the stench of our sin resting on his mangled body and soul.  Jesus breathed His last and stormed the gates of hell on our behalf.

But in the meanwhile His disciples were scattered, the body was put into a borrowed tomb and the followers of the Messiah, God’s perfect lamb that was slain, were lost with no idea where to turn.  On Saturday morning they were in shock.

Can you relate?  Have you known confusion at the events and circumstances unfolding around you?  A moment changes your world.  You can’t figure out what is really a happening, just like the disciples must have felt on the night of Jesus’ arrest.

Have you experienced something tragic?  A great loss that is incomprehensible.  Unbelievable.  Devastating.  As they must have felt at His crucifixion.

Do you know the numbness that comes in the aftershock of tragedy?  It takes all your energy to breathe.  You just go through the motions.  You can’t comprehend.

We’ve probably all felt those things.  We may be living in one of those days now.  The confusion of Thursday.  The tragedy of Friday.  The numbness of Saturday.  What day is it for you?

I hope that you are living in the POWER of Sunday.  Sweet friends, life is hard and the enemy is mean, but we have within us the power of the resurrection EVERY. SINGLE. DAY!

Philippians 3:10-12 says: “ I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!  I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me”.

Romans 8:9-14 tells us: “But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature,you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God;”

The Spirit of God that raised Christ from the dead is living in us!  We don’t have to be slave to anything or be controlled by anything but that Spirit.  That powerful Spirit that conquered death, hell, the grave and all sin for all humanity for all time.  That power lives within us making us victorious.  Making us free.

We can move past the confusion of Thursday, the tragedy of Friday and the despair and numbness of Saturday.  We can live like it’s Resurrection Sunday every day, every moment.  What a wondrous gift our Savior’s death brought to us.  Freedom from guilt.  Freedom from the chains of the past.  Freedom to move forward.  Freedom to hope.

What day is it for you?  Live in the power of the Resurrection and make every day a celebration wrapped in peace.