There is no doubt in my mind that the Saturday of that first Easter weekend must have been one of the darkest times in the human story. I can't imagine a group of people more crushed than the followers of Jesus would have been on that day.

They must have clung to hope all day on Friday. Surely He would pull through. He would rise up. He would get off the cross. He would burst to new life and show everyone who mocked who He really was. He would overthrow Rome. He would topple the religious leaders. He would do anything but die. Yet at the end of the day, they laid the One they had believed to be God in a tomb. Their King was dead.

Imagine for a minute.

Everything they thought He would do was no more. He must not have been who they hoped He was - God doesn't die. They had fallen for the greatest lie in the world. They had been sucked in by a fraud. And now He was dead. And now they had to figure out where to go and how to pull their lives back together without Him.

Imagine for a minute.

Hold on to that today, let the bleakness set in. Let it settle on your heart. It's the only way to be ready for what comes tomorrow.