What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled. Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death….“Awake, O Sleeper and Arise from the Dead and Christ shall give you light!
Consider this controversial passage from Scripture: “After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built…” (1Peter 3: 19-20a).
Our very own Anglican Catechism eloquently states, “That Jesus descended to the dead means that he truly died and entered the place of the departed,” (To Be A Christian Page 42, Q68)
Our Lord Jesus, himself very God, truly died. The heartbeat, brain functions, and circulation of Jesus body ceased to operate. If he would have been delivered to a modern hospital, he would have been pronounced Dead On Arrival. Most people can grasp that Jesus suffered. More so that he can relate to the pain of suffering and the corresponding trauma it inflicts.
But on Holy Saturday, we engage in a whole day and a whole Eucharistic service, the Easter Vigil, that straddles the line between his death and visit to prison, while also joyously celebrating that Jesus has risen indeed, all in the same few hours!
Holy Saturday then, breathes fresh air into my faith every year. The God-man foretold in all the redemptive prophecies, which are patiently and slowly recounted at the Vigil, has come and faithfully and willingly fulfilled the promises foretold. Jesus was crucified, died, and buried. He truly was put to death for the sins of the whole world, including mine. And for that reason, we can rise, eternally.
“Awake, O Sleeper and Arise from the Dead and Christ shall give you light!”
It is clear that Christ descended down to us. He descended by taking on our creaturely form and coming among us. He descended by becoming subject to us and this fallen world. And 1 Peter 3 reminds us that his descent was also to Hades, the place of the dead.
But just as beautiful is his ascent. He rose from the grave. He rose victorious and glorious. And he ascended even to the right hand of the Father. Holy Saturday, more than another other day of Christian remembrance, allows us to prolong this scenario. His death, his true, physical, and painful death took him to the depths, but his resurrection lifted him to the right hand of God the Father.
Jesus’ death takes the fear out of death because he overcame its and, as our canticle says, “opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers” (BCP, 18). Holy Saturday gives us that thin, silent, still pause between death and resurrection to remember that Christ has become the true and better sacrifice. To quote a recent song from Molly Skaggs,
There ain’t no grave
Gonna hold my body down
When I hear that trumpet sound
I’m gonna rise up outta the ground
Eternal God,
Who made this most holy night to shine with brightness of your one true light: sanctify this new fire, we pray, and so set us aflame with the fire of your love, that with pure hearts and kindled affections we may attain to the radiance of your heavenly glory; through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.
