I'll begin by stating that last night was the same night our Savior suffered beyond comprehension on the cross of Calvary for us all almost two thousand years ago, and today you see is the day after He, the Magnanimous and Unconquerable, wasn't quite risen yet, but also still served on the other side of the veil (as I learned today from my mother). Honestly I've never given any thought to this day at all, usually the first for its sacrifice and the third for its sacredness, but never the second. That is, until today. Why is that? Is not this day as sacred and beautiful as the other two? I'll have you know, it is. This is the Day of Silence and though it is a day quit unlike the first and third, it still holds a gentle sacredness and reverence in its hushed elegance. This day denotes that the Savior of the world and the Man much more than a man indeed was killed and made to suffer more than any mortal being ever should.
In his grace and humility, Jesus of Nazereth could not even own His own tomb; His tomb was borrowed and given from a good friend, Josephus (I believe) who made sure his Savior and Friend was given a tomb He deserved as his King. Surely the Prince of Peace who suffered with no resignation to our needs, deserved nothing but the greatest this earth could offer, but instead His mortal body that endured so much laid in a borrowed tomb for three days and most certainly did on the Day of Silence.
There behind a cloudy stone of snow and love the Messiah laid, free from His worldly pain, but still enveloped in His love and ultimate residing sacrifice that none other could do for us. Even in death He continued to serve, and so the second day is important because it reveals to us that His love and most certainly His devotion did not end by the grave that was so cruelly and wickedly forced upon Him.
I imagine the beloved and virtuous Mary Magdalene coming to the sceplecure to simply stand beside the rock dividing her Savior and she. And perhaps she rests here, too heavily burdened with tears and grief from the cruel, but vital loss of her Savior. Perhaps she waited there all day and through the night, resting in the flowers, maybe looking up at th stars with Him in her heart and tears in her eyes, praying for His return and aching for Him like never before. Then I imagine a different love, the love of a mother, that could not compare to the utter despair and cavernous pain she felt knowing her Son, her precious babe she first wrapped in swaddling clothes and hugged tightly in a small and simple manger, who now was wrapped in clothes of fine linen and shut tightly in a tomb--was gone. How lonely she must've felt, abandoned, waiting for the bright morning of the glorious Resurrection in which she, the mother of the Son of God, finally hears the sweet news that the voice of her Son, saying, "Mary." came to be and Mary of Magdalene in ardent return and deep elation replies,
"Raboni."
(Which is to say, "Master".)
What great reverence the Day of Silence brings to my heart and oh how brave a mother's love and that of a follower of Christ is when she must hear it also.
We should remember the Day of Silence not because He was dead, but because even in His death, He still thought and cared and served for us; even in death He was, is, Unconquerable. That is why we remember the second day, the Day of Silence.
