Good morning. It’s Saturday, April 4th.

🥳 Congratulations on starting today with God, and thank you for letting us be a part of it.

📖 Verse Of The Day

— Matthew 27:66

🧠 Devotional

There is 1 day until Easter, and today we’re looking at what happens after Jesus is crucified. This is the moment He is laid in the tomb.

And these verses tell the story:

Matthew 27:57–60 (NIV)

57 As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus.

58 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him.

59 Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,

60 and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.

61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.

Matthew 27:65–66 (NIV)

65 “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.”

66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

After Jesus dies, evening is coming, and Joseph of Arimathea, who had become a disciple of Jesus, goes to Pilate and asks for His body. Pilate gives him permission, so Joseph takes Jesus down, wraps Him in a clean linen cloth, and lays Him in a new tomb cut out of the rock.

A large stone is rolled in front of the entrance, and Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sit there watching, seeing exactly where He is laid. Then the tomb is made even more secure, as a guard is posted and the stone is sealed, so from the outside it is completely shut and watched.

At this point, Jesus is no longer on the cross, He is in the tomb, and as far as anyone can see, it’s over.

But Scripture says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

And this is that kind of moment, the waiting…

So at the end of the day, Jesus is showing us this: when things feel finished and sealed in your life, God may not be finished.