This past Friday, I got up at 4:30 a.m. to drive home from school for Easter weekend. I had a lot of time in my car to think about a lot of stuff… but the thought I kept coming back to was that it was Good Friday, and just a few hours later and a couple thousand years ago, Jesus Christ would be nailed to a cross.

My innocent Savior would take on the greatest of all pain so that I could live. For us, Easter is a happysad story. It’s sad and painful and humbling to know of the suffering Christ endured on our behalf, but it is also the greatest story of all time with the most joyful ending imaginable. After he was beaten to the point of complete exhaustion, he was mocked, spat on and eventually killed. But as scripture says, on the third day, Jesus Christ ROSE FROM THE GRAVE. He literally laughed in the face of death –  it had NO HOLD on Him. He ENDED sin and defeated what before was undefeatable.

As many of us do, I find so much rest in knowing that story. It gives me hope and comfort, and it leaves me in awe wondering how in the world anyone could love me enough to take that on for me. But, despite its low points, it doesn’t make me sad because I know how the story ends. I know that as dark as the day was that Christ was crucified, the Light was coming.

It makes me wonder, though, what it must have been like to not know how the story ended. To not know that in just a few days Christ would rise and that everything he endured was for the sake of his people. I can’t imagine how it must have felt to be a follower of Jesus on that day and to watch my entire hope – the God incarnate – hang on a cross with no one there to say, “Don’t worry, there’s a happy ending!! The darkness will fade, the light is coming!! Just wait!!”

There was no immediate assurance that what Jesus said – that he would come again – would be fulfilled. How could they assume that this man of flesh, whose life they watched leave his body, would come again?

The answer is simple and difficult and clear and vague:  Faith.

I know, I know… sounds like a Sunday School answer to me too, but the only way I can imagine Christians back then pushed through those days of darkness was by the faith they had that their Savior spoke Truth and that He was coming back.

…which brings me to my point.

We face our own darkness everyday. We see it in the world, in those around us and in our own situations. We see hate, violence, anger, spite… We experience heartache and letdowns.

It’s easy to find ourselves in a position of seeing no light at the end of the tunnel; we lose hope that we are greater than the darkness. And, in truth, we aren’t. But we know the One who is. Our Father in heaven is in the light and of the light and he really really hates the darkness. So much so that He would never leave you in it. All He asks is that you trust in the plan He has for you.

It won’t be easy. It may hurt a whole lot. It may feel like you’re watching all the hope you had just crumble to pieces in front of you.

But when you reach that place, remember those who so long ago watched the hope of the world hang lifeless on a tree. Remember that we know the end of their story, and I’d say it all turned out pretty ok for them. Take rest in that. Know that if a story that involved the death of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, could have a happy ending, I would bet yours does too.

So be patient. Take heart. Have faith. Trust in the One who breathed breath into life.

He’s got you, hold tight. Joy Comes in the Morning.