Day: April 8, 2023

“All the people hung upon his words”

This is the night of watching and waiting upon the truth and power of God’s love, a love which is greater than the darkness of human sin and death. We watch and wait, once again, by hanging upon the words of Scripture. We watch and wait in expectancy for God’s great creative action, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The point is very simple. Christ dies but love lives and triumphs over death. All of the Scripture readings at the Vigil underscore this essential insight and truth. We are reminded that the goodness of God is and must always be greater than every form of evil. The Resurrection is Creation renewed by being recalled to the truth of God in love and forgiveness.

The divine desire to be reconciled with his sinful creation means the redemption of all sinners. It requires that we hang upon his words, listening to the great Paschal Praeconium, the Easter Proclamation, listening to the Prophecies of Scripture that speak of God’s triumph over sin and evil, and then renewing our baptismal vows by which God has reconciled himself to each of us in his love for us. Then there is the simple joy of rejoicing in Christ’s redemption of our humanity with Lauds, the praises of Easter morning, the resurrection alive in us.

How? By hanging upon the words of Scripture that testify to the Resurrection. Dr. Johnson once said that the prospect of hanging wonderfully concentrates the mind. Well, our hanging upon his words concentrates our minds even more wonderfully upon the reality of divine love. It makes us alive, restored and renewed in love. Such is the wonder and the power of the Vigil. Our hanging upon his words opens us out to the Risen Christ.

“All the people hung upon his words”

Fr. David Curry
Easter Vigil 2023

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“All the people hung upon his words”

Christ no longer hangs upon the Cross. It might seem then that we no longer hang upon his words. He is dead and buried.

Holy Saturday is the day of the greatest peace and the deepest silence. It recalls the Jewish Sabbath, to God’s “resting” on the seventh day after the labours of creation. On Holy Saturday, Christ rests in the tomb. Everything is at peace since all that stands between God and man has been overcome on the Cross. We have heard Jesus’ last words from John, “it is finished,” and from Luke, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” There is, it seems, only peace and silence. It reminds us of paradise. And yet, Holy Saturday is more than paradise and 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 in 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. “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.

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 fullest possible 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 us but again 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 the gathering of 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 t 1 Peter tells us. It recalls the story of Noah, itself an Old Testament image of God restoring by the flood and Noah and the Ark the mess that human sin creates. Peter sees this 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. God seeks the reconciliation of the whole of our sinful creation. In every way, we are gathered to God by hanging upon his words.

“All the people hung upon his words”

Fr. David Curry
Holy Saturday, Matins & Ante-Communion 2023

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