Saturday 19th April

It had all been going so well.  There had been miracles, there had been healing there had been provision.  Excitement and challenges by the bucketload and lifechanging teaching which had turned them upside down.  There had been travel, weddings, parties, and intimate times of close friendship.  There had been tears, but much more laughter - it had all been fantastic.

And now it was all gone.  In the blink of an eye. And it had gone disastrously horribly wrong.  All the promises now sounded hollow.  All the hope for a better brighter future had vanished.  Everything on which
they had invested their lives had come to nothing - or worse - had put them in immense danger.  They couldnt go back to their previous lives and there was nowhere to run.  It was a disaster.

And the strange thing is that from that day forth it didnt get any better.   From that day on they were hunted down and killed.  Scattered to the four corners of the globe.  Perseucted and misunderstood - there really was no happily ever after for any of them.

I have several friends who have had a horrible time this past year or so.  They have gone from having happy together lives,  good jobs, solid marriages, nice homes to losing it all in the blink of an eye.   It can happen to any of us at any time - through accident or illness, through death or an affair or redundancy.  And if it happens to you after years or decades of everything being safe and sunny then the shock can be almost as bad as the catastrophe.    The disciples didnt know what was going to happen next.  All they knew was Jesus had died and everything He had promised had apparently come to nothing.   They had not just lost an amazing friend they had lost hope.  Losing hope is a terrible thing.   On that Saturday in the upper room there was no point in saying ' Listen guys Im sure this will all work out for the best' - they had believed the evidence of their eyes and that evidence was overwhelming.   Sometimes the evidence before our own eyes is overwhelming too.  We lost our job, we got cancer, our spouse had an affair, we lost our house, our child got sick.......  there is no arguing with the facts.  Sometimes life is very hard and none of it seems to make any sense.

But what the disciples didnt know and couldnt see is that God was not dead.  He was busy.  Active.  Not just on behalf of His friends the disciples but on behalf of us all.   He was defeating Satan ( and who knows what that might have looked like)  and visiting spirits imprisoned in Noahs generation
1 Peter 3
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 After being made alive he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient 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,

Im not sure what that means - does it mean that all the people who were drowned in the flood without chance to repent were given that chance by Jesus?  Does it mean that He walked through Hell declaring His victory to all those evil spirits which had rejoiced at the near annihilation of the human race in the generation of Noah??  I dont know.  And it doesnt really matter because what I do know is that on that Saturday after the crucifixion the most awesome process was underway - unbeknowns to the disciples.

My friends who are suffering hard times at the moment cant see what God is up to behind the scenes.  Some of them cant even trust that He is doing anything at all.  They have been so disappointed and hurt and feel He has let them down so utterly.  I guess the disciples could identify with that.   And the irony is that despite what Jesus did next, life for the disciples wasnt about to get any easier.  The resurrection brought power to stand through the trials, bear the persecutions, survive the shipwrecks and testify right up to the brutal deaths. But it changed everything forever.   They could not go back to life as it was.   Life just got a whole heap tougher.  But a whole heap more exciting and powerful.

So if it all looks bleak and hopeless and depressing - if God seems to have abandoned you and everything on which you built your life has crumbled........ remember the disciples in that room that weekend and trust that any minute now there is going to be a knock on your door to tell you that there is hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YByT6wfdhJs