Key Passage
This day was called Preparation day. (That means the day before the Sabbath day.) It was becoming dark.
— Mark 15:42 ERV (Read Full Text)
Key Thought
We have lost almost all sense of a day of preparation for a holy day with God. Unfortunately, many Christians have lost their sense of the special-ness of the first day of the week (Sunday) and let many other things crowd in and distort a day to be with God and his people. To challenge folks to spend Saturday preparing for this day is almost unthinkable to many in our busy world. Yet in the middle of the mayhem and horror of the crucifixion, the Jews in Jesus' day took notice and sought to honor their Sabbath with God. There are two judgments rendered by this one short verse. First, ritual observance of days does not make us holy, because it is so easy to do the ritual and forget the righteous call of God—the horrible acts of the people directed at Jesus are proof of this. Second, in our day, we have lost the sense of holy because we have allowed all days to become the same—busy days to get done what we want to do and then squeeze our "God-time" in where it fits. How sad on both accounts.
Prayer
O Father, please give me a proper sense of what is holy. I do not want to be a legalistic ritual keeper; yet at the same time, I do not want to drain all of life of its meaning by secularizing all time. Teach me to know your will, your time, and your holy ways. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Related Scriptures
So be very careful how you live. Don't live like people who are not wise. But live wisely. I mean that you should use every chance you have for doing good, because these are evil times. So don't be foolish with your lives. But learn what the Lord wants you to do.
— Ephesians 5:15-17
There is a right time for everything. And everything on earth will happen at the right time. There is a time to be born, and a time to die. There is a time to plant, and a time to pull up plants. There is a time to kill, and a time to heal. There is a time to destroy, and a time to build. There is a time to cry, and a time to laugh. There is a time to be sad, and a time to dance from joy. There is a time to throw weapons down, and a time to pick them up. There is a time to hug someone, and a time to stop holding so tightly. There is a time to look for something, and a time to consider it lost. There is a time to keep things, and a time to throw things away. There is a time to tear cloth, and there is a time to sew it. There is a time to be silent, and a time to speak. There is a time to love, and a time to hate. There is a time for war, and a time for peace. Does a person really gain anything from his hard work? {No!} I saw all the hard work God gave us to do. God gave us the ability to think about his world. But we can never completely understand everything God does. And yet, God does everything at just the right time. I learned that the best thing for people to do is to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live. God wants every person to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. These are gifts from God. I learned that anything God does will continue forever. People can't add anything to the work of God. And people can't take anything away from the work of God. God did this so people would respect him.
— Ecclesiastes 3:1-14
Lord, tell me, what will happen to me now? Tell me, how long will I live? Let me know how short my life really is. Lord, you gave me only a short life. My short life is nothing, compared to you. Every person's life is only like a cloud {that quickly disappears}. No person lives forever! SELAH Our life is like an image {in a mirror}. We rush through life collecting things, but we don't know who will get them {after we die}.
— Psalm 39:4-6
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