Last night He came and He spoke to me – in a dream.
He took me back in time. Over 2000 years back.
To this very hour of this very night. It was not just the darkest hour of the night. It was the darkest hour of Any night there ever was or ever would be.
Only hours earlier, Jesus had taken His last breath in a fragile human, mortal body, and His broken form had been laid in a tomb to decay.
Flashing before my eyes were manifestations of the darkest parts of our humanity – fleeting visions of the ravages of war, rape, hate, strife, theft, rage, jealousy, terrorism, shootings, and scenes exposing my own most hateful, selfish and prideful thoughts and behavior, and those of my children too.
And then suddenly, there I was again. It was the middle of the night after our Lord had just been slain. I was hiding out in a dark, locked room with the Disciples, Jesus’ most pitiable mother Mary, and others who’d followed Him devotedly these past two, three years.
We had HEARD Him speak of things only God could know. We had SEEN Him love those the world deemed unlovable and us who felt unlovable. We had SEEN, or EXPERIENCED, Him heal countless afflictions, physical, mental & emotional. We had SEEN Him feed thousands with just a few fish and loaves of bread. We had SEEN Him walk on water.
But somehow, suddenly, He was…gone. Taken from us. And He’d died the most helpless, hopeless, most excruciating and powerless of deaths. How, why, would He let this happen?
What were we to do? Where were we to go? What, or Who, had we believed in, trusted, followed all this time? And what for??
I felt despair, confusion, horror, fear…as I had never felt before. Somehow, I was IN the shoes of the Disciples on the night of the Crucifixion. It was beyond the worst feeling.
But then.
He spoke and “awakened” me from this dream…though in actuality, my body slumbered on and my dream continued.
“Now you know. You know what the first hours of the original Holy Saturday were like. They were the darkest hours, when all seemed lost and shattered. But that’s not true, was it? Anita, you Know what happened next. You Know the BEST, MOST HOPEFUL, MOST VICTORIOUS DAY EVER came next.”
And so, all fear was gone. ALL FEAR WAS GONE. Tomorrow was not just a new day. Tomorrow was THE DAY. Easter Sunday was upon us and HE would be RISEN, once and for all.
