Day 40 | Holy Saturday

Reflection

The Saturday before Easter is the ultimate waiting day. The women prepare to do the right next thing for burial but then it’s the Sabbath, so they have to wait. And then, as we know, the next day Jesus meets them in person!

Today we wait to celebrate tomorrow’s good news. But the most needed, most powerful, miraculous good news ever came to the women in this passage first.

The greatest thing about Lent is that Lent is not the greatest thing. The big news – the truly great news – is celebrated on Easter Sunday. The greatest confidence drivers for the disciples came after Lent. The confidence of the first disciples grew exponentially as a result of Easter Sunday and continued to grow at Pentecost. Because an encounter with the risen Jesus and God’s Spirit grows confidence like nothing else.

Perhaps confidence will grow in surprising ways for us, too, when we wait.

In this devotional journey, we pray that the greatest confidence gains will also come after Lent. Our marker for the success of this journey isn’t whether we all managed to read all 40 days and did so on time. Neither are we measuring whether everyone can remember and recite the six ‘C’s we’ve used as themes.

Instead, success looks like each of us having found some biblical truths that anchor our confidence – helping us represent Jesus well on our frontlines. And even greater success would be if we are genuinely more confident, braver, and more active disciples, Monday to Saturday – disciples who then seek to instil some of that confidence in our Christian friends and family, in their role as whole-life disciples too.

Responding in Prayer

Lord, thinking back on this confidence journey – and the themes of conviction, community, compassion, consistency, competence, and courage – show me which of these attributes will help me most in this season.

Help me to grow in faith confidence so that I represent You faithfully each day.

Help me to help others to do the same.

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