O God of the Stillness, God of the Waiting,
Today we stand in the in between.
Between the breaking and the mending,
between the grief of the cross and the glory of resurrection.
The tomb is sealed.
The sky is quiet.
And the world holds its breath.
As David once cried:
“How long, O Lord? Will You hide Your face forever?” (Psalm 89:46)
So we echo his lament, feeling the weight of silence,
not as abandonment, but as mystery—
a holy pause,
a sacred waiting.
God is too good to be unkind and too wise to be mistaken.
And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.
So in this silence, we trust.
Even when we do not understand,
even when the grave looks too final,
we cling to the cross,
and we wait at the tomb.
Lord Jesus, Your body—still, cold, lifeless—
lay in a borrowed grave.
Heaven was silent.
The disciples scattered.
And hope, it seemed, had died.
The cross shows us the seriousness of our sin,
but it also shows us the immeasurable love of God.
And it is that love—deep, unseen, and eternal—
that was even now shaking the foundations of death.
We confess, Lord, we are not good at waiting.
We want the sunrise without enduring the night.
We rush to Sunday,
but today, You invite us to sit in Saturday.
To sit with our unanswered prayers,
to weep over the world as it is,
and yet believe in the world as it will be.
God is always doing 10,000 things in your life,
and you may be aware of three of them.
So we yield our restless hearts.
Even in the silence, we believe You are at work.
Even in the stillness, You are not absent—
You are preparing glory.
Jesus, You descended into death,
into the very grip of the grave.
You walked into darkness so that we might one day walk in light.
You tasted death so we would never be swallowed by it.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for You are with me.” (Psalm 23:4)
The silence of Saturday teaches us this:
the grave may be quiet, but it is not victorious.
And we believe that, Lord.
Even now. Even here.
This silence is not abandonment.
It is expectancy.
It is not the end of the story,
but the space before the resurrection song begins.
“Though sorrow may last for the night, joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)
God, we lift up those who wait in darkness—
those who grieve,
those who wrestle with doubt,
those who sit in silent suffering.
Be near to them.
Speak softly in the silence.
Let them feel, even faintly,
the pulse of coming resurrection.
Help us not to despise the quiet,
but to find You in it.
To trust that when all seems lost,
Your plans are not thwarted but fulfilled in Your perfect time.
Like the seed buried in the earth,
You were hidden for a moment—
but from that hiddenness would burst forth eternal life.
We thank You, Jesus,
for enduring not just death,
but the waiting between.
We thank You for the promise
that even in the grave, You are Lord.
And we hold fast to the hope
that the stone will roll away,
that death will lose its sting,
and that joy will rise like the dawn.
“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put my hope.” (Psalm 130:5)
Until Sunday breaks,
we wait in holy stillness.
We wait with tear-streaked eyes,
and with hearts that dare to hope.
Thank You, Jesus,
for the cross,
for the silence,
for the resurrection that is surely coming.
In Your holy, hidden, soon risen name Jesus we pray,
Amen.