This was the longest day. In the history of humanity, this must have been the longest day. Had it really happened? Was it all just a bad dream? It couldn’t have been a dream, they hadn’t slept in days. He was gone. It was sinking in now. The truth of it all – the reality of what lay ahead. The shame. The mocking. The truth. He was gone. For all his talk of a new life and kingdom, it was obvious now that none of those things were going to happen. Not on this day… not on any day.

What would they do now? Where would they go? Back to their families? How could they face them? What would they say? “I have been absent, missing from your life for three years, following the man I believed, we ALL believed to be the Messiah, but I was wrong.” They couldn’t go home. But they couldn’t stay here.

Everyone in the city was looking for them. They were wanted men, friends of the rebel who had met his untimely end. This room was only theirs for so long, a haven in a lair of danger and heartbreak. If they stayed they might share his fate. They couldn’t stay here. But where would they go?

All of us at one point have been where they sat that day. In a place of pain and confusion, longing and despair. Knowing we must move on, but not knowing how. Unwilling to lift your legs to put one foot in front of the other. Afraid to even move for fear that something else will go wrong. Waiting. For something you do not know is coming. This is the longest day.