A Quiet Day

It was a quiet day. The turmoil of the last few days was finally past. Jesus, the Galileean teacher who had stirred up so much trouble, had finally been trapped and put to death before he could create even more unrest. His execution had been a most unusual one, not only from the
haste because of the upcoming Jewish Sabbath, but all the events surrounding it. The unnatural dark in the afternoon, and the great earthquake as he died, had been enough to make even a battle-weary centurion shudder with fear. But the Galileean was in his tomb, and that was that.

It was a quiet day. The many thousands of pilgrims, in the city for the high day of Passover week, were also subdued because of the Sabbath, when travel and activity were restricted, although they were crammed into every corner and crevice of Jerusalem and the smaller villages surrounding. Some of them were probably disappointed that Jesus was dead, having come from all over hoping to see another miracle from the healer/teacher, only to find that he had been killed by the Romans at the insistence of the mob. Of course, there might have been a much larger confrontation had he lived; quite a few of the people were hoping for a revolution, to overturn the Romans. But those hopes were dashed with the criminal conviction and execution of the teacher from Galilee.

It was a quiet day. The followers of Jesus had all gone into hiding, fearful they would be condemned and executed next. They had no idea which of their neighbors would be informants to the Pharisees, so they kept inside. The women wept quietly. The men were silent, staring into the fire or pacing back and forth in frustration.

It was a quiet day. The Jewish children were kept inside, according to custom, except for their short walk to the synagogue and back. The adults breathed a sigh of relief that some of the tension in the city was past. Even the rabbis, who might have been noisy in their triumph over the Galileean and his followers, were subdued. Some of them remembered that Jesus had claimed he would rise again on the third day, and they went to Pilate to secure a guard for the tomb. Not that they believed him, but they wanted to make sure nothing at all happened.

But at least it was a quiet day.  It looked as though tomorrow, the first day of the week, everything would be back to normal.