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ABOUT 'EASTER' SATURDAY
 
I woke up this morning thinking on the fact of it being Easter Saturday...  I was wondering on several points.  We accept Good Friday as what it is, and Resurrection Sunday's name is pretty clear, but Saturday - has no well known name or observance (that I know of anyway).
 
We remember Jesus death on the Friday, His resurrection on the Sunday - but Saturday was a busy day for Him too.   His body lay in a tomb but His spirit had places to go and people to see.
 
The book I am reading on Covenants at the moment made an interesting remark that I asterisked and wrote "WOW" beside it in the margin.  It said this of Adam and Eve:
It would appear that before sin and death entered, the couple lived in an acute awareness of the spirit dimension - so much so that they were hardly aware of their bodies except as the vehicle of their spririts...  The entrance of sin and death turned everything upside down.  After they sinned they were suddenly acutely aware of their bodies, stripped of the glory of God while paralysed and confused in terms of the heavenly dimension. Malcolm Smith:  "The Power of the Blood Covenant"
That confusion continues today to the point that often the unseen is ignored or forgotten or pooh-poohed.
MT 27:50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.   At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split.  The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.  They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!"
 
1 Peter 3:18-22  For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built...

1 Peter 4:6!!!  For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
These verses show the unseen Jesus on the day we gloss-over on Easter Saturday was still busy about the business of completing the work of salvation.
 
So yesterday, we didn't go to church - we had brekky together and all watched a DVD.  Well, we watched the second part of "The Feasts of Israel" which concentrated on Passover. (See "Feast of Israel" article here or DVD ad here).
 
We stopped it at one point near the end as a word came up that none of us knew.  "QUATRODECIMANS".  We discussed QUATRO being four, and DECI being ten, and that it must represent some sort of people group believing a certain philosophy and I resolved to ask the great oracle (Google) after the DVD finished. 
 
Then at lunch the kids asked, why Friday is called "Good Friday"?   Rod thought about it for a minute and then said... that whenever God finished something, He called it good.  Jesus cried out "it is finished" before giving up His spirit on the cross.  The work of redemtion was finished.  It was His plan.  It is good.  (Also that he didn't know if that was the reason...!)
 
We also wondered where the word "Easter" comes from.
 
So after lunch I consulted the-great-all-knowing-but-not-all-wise-oracle GOOGLE with some questions.
 
Turns out "Easter" was a word associated with some other festival which was referred to as a know time on the calendar.   It then became associated with the death and resurrection of Jesus and stuck.  (Check this out yourself and see what you turn up).
 
I didn't look up "Good Friday" as a name of the day as I like Rod's answer and plan to stick with it as my reason for calling it that.
 
And "quatrodeciman"?  That means 4 + 10 being 14 which referrs to the 14th of Nissan, being the date on the Hebrew calendar that Passover is celebrated on.  Passover being what the disciples and Jesus were gathered to celebrate on the night He was betrayed.  The night before He died.  
 
The dating of Easter was separated from Jewish custom in the first few centuries AD.  It was decreed to be celebrated so that the resurrection would always and universally be remembered on the Sunday following the 14 of Nissan.  Quatrodecimans were martyred for continuing to celebrate according to the date of Passover.
 
Not a great witness to the Lord's love.
Colossians 2:16-17 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.  These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.  
Oh Father, help us do a better job of concentrating on the real point of things.  Thanks for your Love and for all you were prepared to do to woo us, the objects of your love.  Amen!