I don’t know about you, but around here we get this weird thing that happens Easter week Every. Single. Year.
Every year the week starts off great, but then turns into this overwhelming hopeless, lost, depressed….. goopy..… messy….. thing.
There is a desire to just hide in the corner and cry all alone. Everything seems too big..… too difficult to overcome..… just not worth the fight anymore.
It’s like the world gets darker, sadder, lonelier, and pointless.
Sleep is desired but never quite fulfilling. Food can’t do it. Prayers are reduced to just “God. please... I can’t… help me…”
This is the week every year that puts me back into a dark, depressing place. The lights are never bright enough. Everyone’s words seem harsher. Everyone seems judgmental. The abnormally bad happens. Tempers flair, and the world seems to fall apart.
But then……
About 8 or 9 years ago as I sunk into this super depressed state, God spoke to me.
He said, “This is the hopelessness my people sunk into between Thursday morning and Sunday morning. This is the depression, the ‘what happens now’ and 'the best has ended and there is now no point in living any longer’ feelings they all felt. You are living it with them. This is what living without salvation feels like. This is what a world without Me feels like. This is what Peter felt as he realized that he had turned his back on his friend and would never get to make it right. This is what they all felt as they sat together in the dark in their shock and depression wondering ‘what happens now?’ This is what utter hopelessness and loss felt like for them. They saw their worlds permanently altered and then destroyed.”
During this time satan did a victory dance on the world and let all his demons out to play. He gleefully turned all the nasty bits that are his out onto the world. The depression, anger, selfishness, immorality, hate, all kinds of evil, all of it turned loose because he thought he had won. I would imagine that he arrogantly and boldly tormented Jesus’s followers after this crushing defeat. I doubt satan is a gracious winner and I bet he poked them with everything he could think of to make their pain even worse because it made his victory feel even better.
Since this revelation of sharing the pain the disciples felt, I feel almost honored that I get to live through this hell. These few days end. Sunday is coming. Salvation is real. Satan lost. Jesus rescued us. Our mighty Warrior King has neither abandoned us or lost the war. This…. feeling….. isn’t permanent anymore. It’s a moment in history that I (and you) get to share with those who walked with Jesus and lost him…. but they didn’t know yet He was coming back!
So, if you suffer through this week like me, try to think of it as suffering with the disciples and all the people who loved and then lost Jesus the moment He was betrayed, arrested, and then killed. Their faith grew by leaps and bounds after this horribly crushing feeling. They didn’t know it yet, but everything was going to get so much better in just a few days! Because, as we all know…..
….. Sunday is coming!
Happy Easter everyone!
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