My father died on a Tuesday morning. It was June the eighth. I can remember it well because my birthday was the day before. He had been sick for a long time, so his death wasn’t unexpected. We held his funeral the next day on the ninth, my middle brother’s birthday. Two birthdays and a death. Kinda hard to forget. We left the cemetery immediately after the graveside service and went home. While we were gone the gravedigger dismantled the canopy, filled in the grave and scattered the flowers people had sent over the fresh soil.

We came back later that summer evening to see things one last time. It was over.

The day after we didn’t return. Flowers were wilting by then. My father had spent the first of many nights to come lying in his grave.

Picture in your mind, if you will, the day Jesus died. Only one disciple, John, was present. His mother was there. For six hours he hung on that cross. John records that he spoke seven times. The first time he asked forgiveness for us. He had mercy on a thief hanging next to him. He acknowledged love for his mother. In agony he wondered if he had been forsaken. He acknowledged that he was thirsty. He let it be known that his mission was complete. And lastly he commended his spirit unto God.

Quickly, they took him down from the cross, wrapped his body and placed him in a borrowed tomb just as Passover began. Then, just like my family did when my father was placed in his grave, his family and friends left the cemetery.

I suspect his mother, siblings and friends went home with all the emotions my family did the day we buried Daddy. They were thinking that just two days before Jesus was alive. A week before they were all happy, even planning the trip to Jerusalem. Now he was dead. How could he be gone?

At sundown the Sabbath began and continued until sundown the next day. Rules and laws prohibited them from doing much. The day after a couple were concerned that they hadn’t had time to anoint his body properly for burial. They figured they’d get up early on the coming day and take care of that final detail. No hurry. He was dead. He was gone just like everyone else that had died before him. If there had been flowers like we had at Daddy’s funeral they were already wilted.

They made it through that first day after he had died just like we had done. They were numb and shocked that he was dead.

They went to bed that night just as we did the day after burying my father. There was an emptiness that held sleep at bay. How were they to go on without him?

They eventually fell asleep remembering the good times. The way he looked. The way he spoke. His mannerisms. His laughter.

But unlike us when we awoke on the third day and my father was still dead, never to return, Jesus had risen from the tomb. He was alive!

After the shock of finding the empty tomb begin to wear off they started remembering things. Things he’d been telling them the whole time they had been together. He had told them he would be back. He’d told them who he was and why he was there, but hadn’t really hit home until he rose from the grave.

For you see, they had two “the day afters.” They had the day after he died, and the day after he wasn’t dead any longer.

The single most important the day after that ever was. He had become a living sacrifice in our place. In doing so our sins would no longer be held against us. Ever.

All we had to do was accept and believe.

And to just think.... it all took place on the day after.

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Rick Algood
April 11, 2020