Items needed: Book: God on Mute by Pete Greig, Tim Hughes – I’ve had questions, pen, paper, bibles

Ice Breaker:     Ask one person to try and remain completely silent (no laughs or anything) and invite one person to try to make them make a noise

Ask: What’s the longest you’ve been silent for?

Explain: Easter week is busy for Christians, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and then Easter Sunday but we always forget one day…Easter Saturday

Ask: Who knows what happens on Easter Saturday?

Explain: Easter Saturday is the most mysterious event in the Christian calendar, it’s rarely celebrated. Traditionally Roman Catholics and Anglican churches strip their alters bare and to many extents it’s the one day in the whole church year where the church is silent.

When we think about Easter Saturday we know that Jesus died for us yesterday and we know looking back that tomorrow represents Jesus returning but today there’s nothing

In the bible there only seems to be one thing that we’re told and that is found in Matthew

Bible: Matthew 27: 62-66

Ask: What does this tell us about Easter Saturday?

Explain: This tiny passage actually tells us very little about Easter Saturday but quashes all possibilities that the disciples could have removed the body of Jesus and pretended that He has risen

Ask: So what do you think the disciples were feeling on Easter Saturday?

Explain: We don’t know exactly what they did, it was the Sabbath so they probably didn’t do a lot, perhaps they were all gathered in one place, perhaps they were hiding from the Roman authorities, perhaps they prayed, we know that at least Thomas doubted and perhaps rightly so, they’d just had their world turned upside down, this crazy lifestyle they’d been leading with Jesus at control had suddenly been stopped by His crucifixion, they’d heard Him talk about His death and His resurrection but I wonder if they thought it would actually happen?

Ask: Who here experiences God all the time?

Who here has all their prayers answered instantly?

Explain: None of us always experience God, even the words of Jesus on the cross ‘My God, my God why have you forsaken me’ echo a empty feeling of being separated from the Father which is why Easter Saturday although we know nothing about it is so important!

We often spend our lives experiencing an Easter Saturday, a period of silence from God, even Mother Theresa wrote in her diaries:

People think that my faith, my hope and my love are overflowing, and that my intimacy with God and union with His will fills my heard. If only they knew.

We all experience an Easter Saturday, we’ve prayed or experienced God on the Good Fridays of our lives and we wait for Easter Sunday, we wait for an answer, we wait for a miracle, we wait for God’s presence to be felt again but whether we feel Him or not God is there

I want to finish with a quote and a chance for you to listen to a piece of music and spend some time thinking about the prayers God has answered for you but also the ones you’re still waiting for an answer to

This quote was found on the wall of a basement in Koln in Germany where a Jewish believer was hiding from the Gestapo in 1945

I believe in the sun even when it isn’t shining
I believe in love even when I am alone
I believe in God even when He is silent

Play: Tim Hughes – I’ve Had Questions