All hell was breaking loose, and Luke tells us that the people rested. The horrors of this day, the day of Christ's suffering, are culminating in a moment of rest. The women from Galilee who had witnessed Jesus' body being taken down from the cross went home on that horrific day thinking they still had work to do. We're told in verse 56 that they went home and prepared spices and ointments to anoint his body.
But by the time they were finished, the Sabbath had begun. So they rested from their work. Even after all of these horrors, they thought that there was still work to be done. What they did not know was that Jesus, on this Good Friday, had completed all the work necessary. So now theirs was to rest. Now, the Sabbath had really come. Jesus finished the work. So that the girls could rest.
He finished the work so that you and I could find rest. On that Friday, Jesus went to work. For bystanders and mocking soldiers, he went to work. For reluctant Pilate and indulged Herod, he went to work for guilty Barabbas and Simon the Cyrene. Jesus went to work for signmakers, cross builders, common criminals, gamblers, good and righteous men like Joseph of Arimathea, and heartbroken women who are forced to watch at a distance. Jesus was finishing his work on that Friday so that we all could find rest. Jesus was giving his everything. He was working hard.
He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He has done the work of redeeming, rescuing, forgiving the sins of the world. He forgave us because we did not know what we were doing. That's why he came to us. Because we don't know. We're trapped and blinded, unable to save ourselves. We don't know what we're doing. Jesus said so himself on the cross, father, forgive them.
They don't know what they are doing. Athanasius says, what then was God to do when he saw humanity spiraling into non being? What was God to do? Because they didn't know he would send his son. Our Lord Jesus would come to rescue us, so that at last our eyes would be open and we would be awakened to life and rest in him. That rest belongs to you. It belongs to all of humanity. He made it free out of the abundance of his heart of love. He did that work. There's nothing left for me to do other than to step in.
To say yes. To receive freely the rest that there is in him. And that's the prayer that I have for my own soul. That's the prayer that I have for my family, for my wife, and my daughters, and my son. And that's the prayer that I have for you. May it be so.
