Imagine the grief of Jesus' disciples on the first Holy Saturday.
Not only had they lost their leader and friend, they also lost their version of the Kingdom of God. They thought that Jesus had come to give them worldly ease and vindication. That, rather than surrender, repentance, and trust in Christ as the way of restoration and new life, is what they thought the kingdom of God was. They saw themselves as basically good people who deserved the help of the good God they met in Jesus. Jesus insists that all of us who descend from the first human beings are born in sin and in need of His salvation (Psalm 51:5; John 14:6). Repentance and faith in Christ are the means by which the kingdom of God comes to us, not through the assertion of coercive power or the passage of so-called godly laws.
The first disciples didn't understand, as we often don't, that our greatest enemies aren't other people. Our enemies are our sin, our death, and our darkness. Jesus had to conquer these enemies by offering His sinless life as a sacrifice for us in order to conquer them.
On the first Holy Saturday, the first disciples too, were filled with fear, certain that now that the world had killed their leader, it would kill them. Of course, the world would and still does kill people for following Jesus. We are all part of a human race that shares the ambition that drove Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the desire to "be like God." To "be like God" or to "be our own bosses," we're prone to push the God we know in Jesus out of our lives or put Him on the margins as a good luck charm we can pull out when we're finding it hard to get what we want. Our impulse like that of the renters of the vineyard in Jesus' parable who said of their master's son, "This is the heir. Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours (Luke 20:14)." We want to wear our own crowns.
But Jesus won the crown. He has the "name above all names." This happened when He died for the whole human race. Jesus is the only way to God, to life with God, to membership in His kingdom in which we are made right with God, with ourselves, with others. At least that's what Jesus claims: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6)."
On this Holy Saturday, on the other side of Easter, the day when Jesus rose from the dead, we know all of that. We know the truth of His promise: "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die (John 11:25-26)."
But even now, we wait. In a world still reeling under sin, death, and darkness, we wait for the final consummation, when the risen, ascended Jesus returns and brings His kingdom finally, fully into being.
Until then, we can know that we are part of this kingdom of grace and love as we daily turn from sin and trust in Christ as our King, God, and All.
And we can pray with all believers of every time and place, "Come, Lord Jesus." He will answer that prayer any time we offer it.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
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