Hey everybody, good morning or whatever time of day it is for you.

Hello, John Mark Comer here with the Bridgetown Daily for Monday, April 13th.

Today is the day after Easter.

And I don't know about you, but I can't think of an Easter weekend in my life or leadership

that was more meaningful for me.

A good Friday, which is the day we get in touch with all of our emotional pain to move

through our emotional pain to Easter Sunday, which the day we get in touch with the hope

we have in Jesus for the future.

But over the weekend and over my Sabbath, I got thinking about a book I read years ago

on Easter weekend.

It's by A.J. Swabota, who was a church planter and pastor here in Portland for about a decade

and just moved away last year to take a professorship.

He's also a dear friend.

He's come to speak at our church before.

You may or may not remember A.J. lovely guy.

And he's a great writer as well.

And he has this book called A Glorious Dark from 2015.

And it's a look at Easter weekend and the three days of good Friday, Saturday or what

in the tradition is called Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday and how each day is symbolic

for seasons of life in the follower of Jesus.

So there are good Friday kind of seasons that are marked by death and grief and loss

and a sense of abandonment, a sense of my God, my God, why have you forsaken me in Jesus'

...