Holy Saturday

April 20, 2019

For well over a thousand years Christians have been affirming their faith in God by reciting the Apostles’ Creed. Trinitarian in formula, in three sections it states our belief in God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The bulk of it concerns Jesus Christ; his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension. One phrase in particular stands out today—“he descended into hell.” It’s not found in all the ancient texts, and it is often omitted when the Creed is recited today. I think its omission is a mistake, especially on this day the Church calls Holy Saturday.

The basis for its inclusion in the Creed are two rather cryptic statements in 1 Peter 3:18-19 where Peter declares that “Christ suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit by who also he went and preached to the spirits in prison,” and Ephesians 4:9 where Paul states, “Now this “he ascended”—what does it mean but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth?””

These Scriptures have been interpreted by some to mean that we are given a second chance after death to repent and be saved; “after all, Jesus preached to those who had died,” they say. I don’t believe that is the meaning of these texts, nor of the words of the Creed.

What was happening during the time Jesus’ body was in the tomb? Was Holy Saturday a Sabbath for Jesus, a day when nothing actually happened? I believe Jesus was very busy on this day, that indeed he did descend to the place of the dead and preached. He wasn’t giving the unbelieving dead another chance; he was proclaiming the Gospel. When the Creed says “he descended into hell,” it isn’t speaking of a place of torment, but is reflecting the Jewish understanding of the place of the dead as a shadowy, ghostly place. It wasn’t torment, but it wasn’t the bliss of heaven, either. I think of it as a spiritual holding cell where the spirits were held without bail awaiting trial. Jesus entered that place to tell how in his death, God the Judge passed judgment so those who had believed were set free, while the others finally knew of their eternal doom.

His descent into hell was nothing more nor less than the fulfillment of Paul’s quote of Psalm 19:4 whee, “their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” (Romans 10:18) There is no place where Good News has not been preached, the highest heaven and the lowest hell have received the Good News that all has been accomplished for our salvation. When we declare that on this day, Jesus descended to the dead, it is our recognition that the job of salvation is complete, and hell’s gates have been breached, so there is no place we can go that is beyond the reach of salvation. We cannot stray too far nor sink so deep that the love of God is unable to find and rescue us. And tomorrow we will gratefully sing the song of salvation, for he has reached into our lowest hell to set us free.