Glorious Saturday

We have come to the end of our Holy Week mile and the end of our forty days and forty nights’ mission of carrying banners which publish Jesus, our Lord, Master, Saviour and King.

On this Glorious Saturday, the day before we come to Resurrection Sunday, is there a banner for us to lift high? Jesus is in the grave, buried in Joseph’s new tomb. Listen to Matthew 27: 57 – 60. As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.

So what banner is there for us? We have one more banner from that single verse of Charlotte Barnard’s hymn, which has been with us throughout this Holy Week.

Saviour, while my heart is tender, I would yield that heart to Thee; All my powers to Thee surrender, Thine, and only Thine, to be.

Yes, we have been under the banners of, the Tender heart, the Yielded heart and the Surrendered heart. Our final heart-banner is the Belonging heart; Thine, and only Thine, to be. We are under the banner which says that now we have given ourselves to Jesus, we belong to Him. We are His and His alone.

Let’s return for a second, to something that was told to us on yesterday’s offering. We were told and reminded of this fact. Jesus died on the cruel cross. Love died on an accursed tree. He died for sinners, but the un-yielded heart cannot accept this free gift of grace. The heart that is stubbornly un-yielded to Jesus, is stubbornly yielded to Satan. It is the heart of every son and daughter of perdition. Is your heart, even now, that of a child of perdition? There is no time to procrastinate, deliberate, or even wonder at this stage, for your life speaks the truth of your heart.

Has not Jesus already explained that out of the heart come all kinds of evil and all kinds of good, depending on the lord to whom the heart yields? Check your heart. In this moment of quiet, while Jesus lays in Joseph’s new tomb, with whom is your heart resting? Don’t you know that if you die with Christ Jesus, you will know resurrection with Him? Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall live with him. Romans 6: 8

We know for sure that today, one sinner is with Jesus, resting in victorious hope. One sinner, on the left of Jesus, as that sinner hung on his cross, opened the banner of an un-yielded heart towards the Dying Saviour on the Cross. He is like the child of perdition. Another sinner, on the right of Jesus, as that sinner also hung on his cross, opened the banner of a yielded heart towards the Dying Saviour on the Cross. He was guaranteed life. Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. Luke 23: 43

Truly, that one sinner on the right of Jesus could joyfully and victoriously sing this glorious chorus, I am Thine and only Thine to be.

On this Holy and Glorious Saturday, as we move from Jesus on the cross, to Jesus in the grave, we are mindful that He will not be there long.

Tomorrow, the third day, He will rise victoriously – having conquered sin, death, hell and the grave.

Hallelujah!