A Lenten Devotional for Holy Saturday

For the first day of Lent, we shared Jeren Rowell’s Ash Wednesday devotional from These Forty Days: A Lenten Devotional and provided the entire reading plan on the blog so that all The Community blog readers could explore Lent together. As we approach the end of Holy Week, The Community with be sharing the devotional reflections for Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter as we anticipate our Lords death and resurrection.

Bible Text: John 19:38-42

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Consider

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

O sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble!

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed Him to a tree?

O sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble!

Were you there when they nailed Him to a tree?

Were you there when they laid Him in a tomb?

O sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble!

Were you there when they laid Him in a tomb?1¹

Prayer for Holy Saturday

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.12

Jeren Rowell

Jeren Rowell, Ed.D., is president and professor of pastoral ministry at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City. He previously served twelve years as superintendent of the Kansas City District for the Church of the Nazarene and twenty-five years as a local church pastor. His prior books include Thinking, Listening, Being: A Wesleyan Pastoral Theology and What’s A Pastor to Do? The Good and Difficult Work of Ministry.