A Holy Week Devotional: Expecting Jesus to Rise

This Holy Week Devotional explores the idea of hope in the midst of devastating loss.

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The days before He rose must have been hard days to hold faith.

They’d been told he would rise.Yet the women walked, beaten and sorrowful to a tomb with spices to embalm their dead. And it would seem they faltered, coming to the tomb not expecting Him to rise.

Instead of faith rejoicing, running to see what miracle would come, they walk clustered together in grief. These women came to Jesus not with faith that He lived, but still tearful at his death. Shocked at an angel and an empty tomb.

Holy Week Devotional: Hope in the Midst of Devastating Loss

These were the women who walked with Jesus. He had healed them with a look, a touch, His presence.

Were those women not expecting Jesus to rise? Had they lost their faith in the midst of the devastating loss of their friend and expected Messiah?

God in His love and grace did not leave them in their grief. An angel was waiting, and this angel greeted them with the simplest of phrases: He is rise as He said.

The simple words He is risen as He said spoke of Restoration.

And just like crocuses burst forth at the FIRST touch of warmth in spring, hope sprang up in the hearts of these mourning women. Hope that drove them to run like life-giving sap runs up a tree.

So great a contrast was their arrival to the tomb to their departure! Heavy steps became flying feet!

Hope in the midst of loss. Restoration out of grief.

Isn’t that how our faith operates too at times in this busy world? We who are burdened down with the hard days and long. Distracted by the cares of this world. Some that are needful like lunches and laundry and the child’s bruised knee or feelings.

Motherhood days can be hard days to hold onto faith. We question what we are doing and why we are here. And in the midst of the noise of our little ones, we feel disconnected from the Source of our faith. We falter and fret: will our children love Him? Will they open their hearts with compassion? Will they [insert a million little things we hope and dream]?

Like the women, we may walk heavily into prayer time. Or avoid it altogether – after all, there were only a few women who dared approach the tomb. We bring our fears to lay at His feet, but perhaps we are not really expecting Jesus to rise and help us in our hour of need.

Losing our faith amid the dishes and the doorbell and the duties, we approach a risen Lord as though He lay still, powerless. As though it is the day before the resurrection…

We have hope because we know…

He is Risen. As. He. Said.

With the benefit of history and hindsight, we know the stone was rolled away. We teach this truth to our children and see it on their faces: their childlike hope expecting Jesus to rise! Let us grasp with them a childlike faith that does not falter!

Let us wake each morning expecting Jesus to rise, in our hearts, in our lives, and in our children’s lives too!

Matthew 28:6 – He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

Have a blessed Resurrection Sunday.

Looking for more devotionals for women?

For more Holy Week Devotionals, visit the Everyday Prayers for Moms Podcast, where I’m reading short devotionals and prayers on 3/25/24 and 3/29/24.

I also have print copies of my Everyday Prayers for ThanksLiving available in my shop.

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