I woke up this morning considering how the disciples must have felt on this day in between. The shock. The emptiness. The broken dreams. The loneliness.

This isn’t how it was supposed to be.

And betrayed by Judas? He was one of us, one of our friends! He walked with us, ate with us, prayed with us. How could he just walk away? How could he just discard Jesus as though He didn’t matter, as though none of this mattered? None of us mattered.

Some friend.

And what about us? What kind of friends are we to just let Jesus die like that? We should have stayed with Him, insisted that they let Him go, or at least that they take us, too! But who are we kidding? We couldn’t even stay awake with Him while he prayed. What is wrong with us?? We are not even worthy to be called His friends.

We are no different than Judas, not really. We have betrayed Him in our own ways.

And what about Jesus?

Can He really be gone? We thought He was the One, the One who was to come. The One we have waited for, generation after generation.

The Messiah…

Who else could make the blind man see and the lame man walk? Who else could heal with a touch of His hand or a word from His mouth? We saw Him raise a dead man to life with our very own eyes! There was definitely something different about Him.

When Jesus looked into your eyes, He saw straight to your soul. He made you feel noticed, valued, seen. He gave us purpose beyond the mundaneness of our days. It wasn’t easy following Him, but it certainly wasn’t boring. If nothing else, we learned to expect the unexpected.

But now He’s gone.

How can He be gone?

He said He’d never leave us; he said He would be with us always.

That was a lie!

Where are you now, Jesus? How could you just go and die? Why didn’t you harness the power of heaven and FIGHT?

Are You even who we thought You were?

Are You even who You said You were?

We believed in You!   

We believed YOU.

We have no idea what to do now. We are locked up here in this room together, afraid for our lives, terrified they will come for us next. And then what?

What are we supposed to do now, Jesus?

We don’t know what to do without You.  This is the last thing we expected.

You’re dead.

You’re really dead.

Oh, Jesus. What are we supposed to do now?

(*Spoiler alert… Joy comes in the morning!!)