Day Seven of Passion Week

Think on these things today.

The followers of Jesus were devastated.  All their hopes and dreams were gone.  Jesus’ body lay wrapped in the grave clothes soaked with the spices and preserving materials.  But Jesus was not in the grave.  He was very busy on this important day.

1 Peter 3:18-22
For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison  who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,  and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also–not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand–with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

What does this mean? It means that right after Christ died, between the Cross and His Resurrection, He went before the spirits in prison, that is Hell, and proclaimed that God’s promise of salvation was fulfilled in Him, the Savior of the world. But who are the spirits to whom He preached?  Scripture says that they were the disobedient toward God who were living upon earth while Noah was preparing the Ark and who were not saved during the flood.

Does this mean that Christ gave them a second chance to be saved? No! It means that Jesus Christ went before them and proclaimed His triumph; He went to vindicate the way of faith, to proclaim that the faith of Noah was victorious. Noah’s life and his proclamation of faith in God were never vindicated in his day; therefore, Christ Himself went before the spirits of unbelievers and personally proclaimed the victory.

Jesus also was collecting keys.  He picked up the keys to death, hell, and the grave.

This was a busy day for the Savior.  His followers were in despair and did not have a clue as to what He was doing . They were in the dark and they wondered where was God.  All the time God was moving in the most triumphant way, in the dark, to work the greatest miracle of all time.  Wow, were they surprised the following morning.  “. . . Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)

Remember when you are in your dark times . . . God did His best work in the dark!!!!!