There’s an old saying that goes “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” That is meant to suggest that things always seem to get worse before they get better. But also it expresses hope that the dawn will come and that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t a train!The main point I want to get across is that even in the worst of circumstances, there is hope, and so we must not give up, but we must dare to hang on for one more day.At this time of year we focus on Jesus’ crucifixion and then Resurrection Sunday, but what about the dark times between these two events?Perhaps, it is because we don’t want to spend too much time thinking about the darkness, the confusion, the agony or the numbness of the aftermath of the crucifixion because it’s too scary and painful, and because we know what happened on Sunday.But those disciples could not skip over these times, so we shouldn’t skip it either.They were sad and confused because their loved Jesus had just been killed—in a horrible way! Undoubtable they wondered: could this really be the end. Also there was the death of Judas who had been with them for several years. There must have been a weight of silence on their shoulders.In their grief, they either forgot Jesus’ promise to rise from the dead, or they just didn’t understand it. Maybe they were embarrassed and felt guilt because they had all deserted Jesus. So their hopes and dreams of the future with the Messiah were dashed and gone forever. They had left everything to follow Him, and now what?In addition they were afraid that their association with Jesus would lead to their own punishment and even death.We are likely to end up in the same kind of dark and hopeless place that the disciples found themselves in, when we go through life’s most difficult experiences. When we find ourselves living in a dark and seemingly hopeless day, caught in limbo between crisis and resolution, because of any of these things I just mentioned, what do we do? How do we get through?Like the disciples who were living through those times, it may seem like there’s no way things can get better, only worse, and all we can think about is what we have lost.As we look at how those first disciples made it through their troubles,
