Sometimes, I find it hard to obey what I know to be right. Be kind. Be merciful. Believe the best. Stop gossiping. Don’t covet your neighbors new sofa. That kind of thing. But during this Easter season, I’m thinking about how hard it must have been for the women who loved Jesus to obey the Sabbath.

The ironic part is that Jesus had tried to show them the Sabbath was given for their benefit, a blessing of rest. It wasn’t meant to be a set of rules. But they wouldn’t figure that out for a while. On this Friday, they would obey as they always had.

Joseph of Arimathea took the body of Jesus to his own tomb for burial. The women who loved Jesus followed and watched. I can’t even imagine. The death of a loved one required specific details like anointing the body with spices. This last act of love was the only thing a mother could do for her son. But, it was too late. The Sabbath was upon them.

So, the women went home. All day on Saturday, they waited. It must have been the hardest Sabbath to keep in their entire lifetimes. They couldn’t even chat on their cell phones to one another and share the agony. They simply waited. At the first crack of dawn, they would race to the tomb.

But, for now, they waited. And obeyed.

I think there is a lesson here for me. I get rather frantic in the waiting sometimes. I forget that while I’m wriggling around, wanting the waiting to end, things are happening. Things that I cannot see. On that Sabbath, death was being destroyed forever.

The women who loved Jesus thought they would go to anoint His dead body after the Sabbath. Instead, they would be the first to announce the Best News in the Whole World.

It was worth the wait.