In the meantime

We are all like the disciples. Their two-day wait is like our two-thousand-year wait. I've often wondered what really went through their heads that Sabbath day. They had to rest, the Bible says. They couldn't travel, as good Jews. But their physical inaction could not have been matched by psychological inaction. Did they expect anything to happen? They were supposed to, but I doubt that in the despair of seeing their leader not just killed, but barbarously tortured and executed, they were in a mental state to go back over all his teachings and figure it out. Maybe I'm wrong, but post-traumatic-stress was probably sitting in. Were they sleeping? Meeting with one another? drinking heavily? (we evangelicals don't want to think that, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of them didn't go on a drunk). Contemplating their career options, such as they were in the first century? Trying to find out what happened to Judas?

Or maybe they were just waiting, in the meantime, like we are. A la Milton, "they also serve who only stand and wait." Occupy til I come, Jesus said.

Like most women of my generation, I am task-oriented (read: hyper to a fault). A day is only good if I have checked everything off my to-do-list. I'm good with the "occupy" part; it's the "til I come part" (keeping in mind that is the whole point of it) that I have trouble with. If the disciples believed he would rise, they probably thought, why the wait? (for the resurrection). If they didn't get it, they probably also thought, why the wait (for the Messiah)?

Yes, why the wait? is the question. How long, oh Lord. Yearning and longing are our lot.