My church had its annual Good Friday service. It was another quiet meditative service where you could come and go at your own pace. There were seven stations with depictions of moments during Christ’s journey to Calvary.

Again, it was quite the moving experience. It’s easy looking back on the event through the eyes of the Resurrection to call it a good Friday, but I’m certain that it didn’t seem like a good day at the time.

The disciples were watching the one they had pinned all their hopes and dreams on being murdered in the most horrific way possible. They had seen Him carried away to be buried in a tomb.

Probably one of the worst moments in anyone’s life is when something they hoped for doesn’t come through. The Bible talks about hope deferred making the spirit sick.

True, the disciples had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. They had witnessed Him bringing others back to life. But they had never seen someone raise himself from the dead. And according to Isaiah 53, He was a mangled, bloody mess. How could He come back to life from that?

I’m thankful this Easter season that such speculation is just that– theoretical and nothing more. We who are on this side of that first Resurrection Sunday know that Jesus did indeed rise from that grave.

My favorite quote from Peter Marshall is that the stone at the tomb wasn’t rolled away so that Jesus could get out but so that the disciples could get in and see for themselves that He was no longer there.

My goal this year is to not gloss over what Easter Sunday means. I want it to sink in deep to the very core of my being. Let it start now.

“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song” (Pope John Paul II).