by CCW | 19 April 2014 17:00
Christ no longer hangs upon the Cross. It might seem then that we no longer hang upon his words. He is dead and buried. That would seem to be the meaning of this day. And yet there is something more, something quite wonderful and powerful about Holy Saturday.
Holy Saturday is the day of the greatest peace and the deepest silence. It recalls us to the Jewish Sabbath, to God’s resting on the seventh day after the labours of creation, as if God needed a rest! On Holy Saturday, Christ rests in the tomb. And everything seems at peace since all that stands between God and man has been overcome on the Cross of Good Friday. We have heard Jesus’ last words, “it is finished,” and “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” There is, it seems, only peace and silence. It may remind us of paradise. And yet, there is something else that makes Holy Saturday more than paradise restored and makes it more than the Sabbath rest of God.
The Scripture readings speak of an activity that underlies all of the peace and silence of this day. We gather at the tomb of Jesus. It is the aftermath of the cruel events of the Passion and yet the Scripture readings speak of something else. “He went and preached unto the spirits in prison,” Peter tells us in a passage that echoes the first lesson at Matins from Zechariah[1], a passage, too, that signals the prophetic basis for Christ’s Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem as a king “humble and riding on an ass and on a colt the foal of an ass.” “Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your captives free from the waterless pit,” an image of Sheol or Hades, of Hell, Zechariah proclaims.
The psalms, too, speak of Hell. “Thou wilt not leave my soul to hell;/neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption” (Ps. 16.11). “Thou, Lord, hast brought up my soul from hell:/ thou hast kept my life from them that go down to the pit” (Ps. 30.3). There is the sense that something is happening despite the quiet and the silence of this day. What is it? It is the Descent into Hell, as the Creed puts it. What does it mean?
Holy Saturday shows us something of the greater meaning of Christ’s crucifixion. It shows us the fuller extent of God’s will to be reconciled with the whole of sinful creation. And while all seems quiet and in silence, Christ descends into Hell to preach unto the spirits in prison! The redemption of our humanity means the gathering up of the spirits of all who have gone before but only by hanging upon his words. Our humanity finds its redemption only in hanging upon the words of Christ.
God’s Sabbath rest is about God’s delight in his creation. The Sabbath rest of Holy Saturday is about gathering the whole of sinful creation to the living word of Christ so that we can take delight in God. Such is the radical meaning of the reconciling love of God for us, the love that returns us to the bishop and shepherd of our souls, as the lesson from 1 Peter tells us. The Epistle reading from 1 Peter recalls us to the story of Noah, itself an Old Testament image of God restoring the mess that human sin creates through the flood and the appointed survivors of the flood, Noah and the arc. It is seen by Peter as a figure of baptism which restores us in our minds to God.
We wait at the tomb given for the body of Christ by Joseph of Arimathea. His action is an act of love and love is already active in ways beyond our imagining. Christ lies in the tomb but the tomb can never fully contain him. He cannot be spirited away by human cunning and deceit. He is always and totally defined by doing his Father’s will. The divine will seeks the reconciliation of the whole of our sinful creation. We are gathered to God by hanging upon his words.
Fr. David Curry
Holy Saturday,
Matins & Ante-Communion, 2014
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2014/04/19/sermon-for-holy-saturday-matins-ante-communion/
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