HOW the crowd sighs when a good boxer or wrestler lies stretched on the mat. He’d been fighting well, when his opponent gave him a lethal punch and there he lies, almost dead! Many had betted on him, some had spoken of his left punch, and how when his opponent was unaware, that left hand would shoot out and lay his opponent low. But no left hand had come to the rescue, and disappointed, the crowd sighs, some with a tinge of sadness to see a good man go, some with anger, who had bet on him winning.
And then as the referee begins his countdown, as the numbers get dangerously close to defeat, the man on the mat rises. But not groggy, and battered as they had seen him when he fell, but now, fit and strong, as if that small time on the ground had rejuvenated and strengthened him.
The crowd roars with approval, for they know victory is around the corner! So also, is Holy Saturday, today, a day when a man lies broken, battered and dead. Just the day before he had had his deadliest bout of merciless, brutal battering from soldiers of the Roman army, and even his fellow Jews. After being lashed on his back, spat upon, and even thorns placed on his head, he had been humiliated and jeered at by the crowds even as they freed a robber named Barabbas, instead of him. He had been laid low. And finally, they had nailed him to a cross, where he bled to death. With heavy hearts loved ones had taken him down. There were mixed feelings among those who saw him die. Many were certain he, proclaiming he was the son of God, would in his final moments bring down legions of angels to free himself. Others had thought that as a revolutionary messiah, he would raise an army from the Jews and captain them to victory.
No one thought that he would be brought down, dead! In silence, they wrapped his body, and on a Saturday long ago, he lay in a tomb, dashing the hopes of thousands and making cowards of those who he had discipled. Low in the grave he lay!
And just as in the boxing ring the referee counts to ten, a God above allowed the foretold three days to pass, and then on the third day he arose! But on a Saturday long ago, a dead man, body bruised and battered, who died that we might live, lay in a tomb, dead! But this was no defeat.
In his death, man was victorious. Man could now talk with God, walk with God, because that silent grave had won man the right to be with God. Low in the grave he lay, victorious..!
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