We don't often talk about Saturday. Good Friday gets the sermons, Easter Sunday gets the celebration, and the day in between — when the stone is in place and the tomb is sealed and the disciples don't know yet — tends to get skipped. But Saturday is where most of us actually live.

We look at the women who came to the tomb at the first possible moment, the stone already rolled aside, the young man in white, and the two words that are among the most pastoral in the whole gospel — and Peter. Then we sit with Mark's original ending, why the oldest manuscripts stop at verse 8, and why that open ending might be the most honest thing Mark could have done. And the question the gospel leaves with every reader. Part two of two.

Mark 15 is the chapter I found hardest to prepare for. Not theologically — but emotionally. Reading it slowly, paying attention to the details, sitting with what actually happened — it's a lot. And I think the right response is to let it be a lot rather than process it too quickly into comfortable doctrine.

We walk through the trial before Pilate, the release of Barabbas and what it means that we are all Barabbas, the flogging, the crown of thorns and what thorns meant in Jewish scripture, Simon of Cyrene pressed into carrying the cross, six hours on Golgotha, three hours of darkness at noon, the cry from the cross, the curtain of the temple torn from top to bottom by God himself, and a Roman soldier who sees how Jesus dies and says what none of the disciples are there to say. Part one of two.

Scripture Reading: Mark 15 & 16

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

I'll be honest — when I sat down to read Mark 14 this week I felt almost unqualified to comment on it. There's something about the intimacy and weight of these pages that makes confident commentary feel slightly wrong. But we walked through it together anyway.

The Passover lamb and what it means that Jesus died at Passover. The new covenant sealed in the same way the old one always was. The prayer Jesus prayed three times in Gethsemane because the answer was no and he had to keep bringing himself back to yes. The I AM that got him killed. And Peter, outside in the courtyard, hearing the rooster crow in the dark. Part two of two.

Mark 13 is one of the most misread chapters in the whole gospel. Wars, earthquakes, famines, false messiahs — every generation looks at the disasters of their own time and says surely this must be the sign. And every generation so far has been wrong. Not because the second coming isn't real, but because they're using the passage to do the exact opposite of what Jesus intended.

We look at what Jesus actually says about the signs, why they're not a checklist, and why the instruction he gives in response to all of it is not to predict but to be faithful. Then we move into the opening of Mark 14 — the plot, the anointing, and a woman who gave everything she had at exactly the right moment without knowing it was the right moment. Part one of two.

Scripture Reading: Mark 13 & 14

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Something shifts in Jesus when he arrives in Jerusalem. He's more direct, less patient, and every conversation seems to end in confrontation. But underneath the noise — the temple tables overturned, the ambushes, the theological traps — there's a consistent question running through everything: what are you actually holding onto?

We look at the triumphal entry and the kind of king nobody was expecting, the fig tree and the temple as one picture rather than two stories, Jesus fielding wave after wave of bad faith questions in chapter 12, the significance of the titles Son of David, Son of Man and Son of God, and finally a widow who drops two coins into a box and somehow captures everything Jesus has been trying to say.

A talk about faithfulness under pressure, heart posture, and what it looks like to come with open hands when everything around you is pushing back.

Scripture Reading: Mark 11 & 12

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

In Mark 10, Jesus encounters a series of people all gripping something — their legal cleverness, their wealth, their ambition, their idea of what following Jesus is supposed to get them. And in scene after scene, he points to the same truth: the kingdom of God can't be grasped. It can only be received. We look at Jesus' teaching on marriage and divorce with pastoral honesty, the rich man who walked away sad, James and John asking for the best seats — and then Bartimaeus, a blind beggar with nothing, who turns out to see Jesus more clearly than anyone. A talk about open hands, and what it costs to truly follow.

Scripture Reading: Mark 10

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.