Holy Saturday

 

April 19, 2025

  

+ This year for Holy Week, I have been re-reading a book I read originally way back in 2006, right after it was published.

 

The book is The Last Week by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.

 

Marcus Borg is one of my favorite contemporary theologians.

 

And this book is a good book to read to get a solid perspective on the events of Holy Week and the last days of Jesus, as well as their meaning.

 

And yes, in this book there is a whole chapter on this day, Holy Saturday, a day most people gloss over and forget.

 

Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter, of course, get all the attention.

 

As they should.

 

But today is about hell.

 

Well, not quite.

 

And it’s also interesting that your priest, who has outspokenly expressed his universalist views regarding “hell,” should pay find this particular liturgy one of his favorite for Holy Week.

 

But to truly understand it all, we must look at that whole concept of hell.

 

First of all, when we hear of the “Harrow of Hell,” or even of Christ descending into hell, we must be clear that the concept of Hell in Jesus’ day was very different than our concept of hell.

 

For Jews of his day, Hell was actually a place called “Sheol.”

 

And Sheol was not the place of hell we traditionally think of.

 

For them, Sheol was the place under the earth, where all dead people went.

 

It was, essentially, the grave.

 

Nothing more.

 

Nothing less.

 

Our concepts of hell have very little do with Sheol or even scripture.

 

Out concept of hell is based solidly on much later popular tradition, such as Dante’s Inferno.

 

This place of hell, where all bad people go, was not even known of in Jesus’ day.

 

So, Holy Saturday is the time in which we commemorate not only the fact that Jesus is lying in the tomb—in which we perform a liturgy that feels acutely like the burial service.

 

We also commemorate a very long belief that on this day, Jesus, although seemingly at rest in the tomb, was actually at work, despite the fact that it seemed he was dead.

 

He was in the depth of hell.

 

Sheol.

 

The grave.

 

The place of the dead.

 

This belief, of course, comes to us from a very basic reading of 1 Peter, and from the early Church Fathers.

 

Christ descended into death and preached to those who had died.  

 

The popular term for this is the Harrowing of Hell.

 

He went to hell and harrowed until it was empty.

 

Whenever I preach about the Harrowing of Hell I always reference the famous icon of Christ standing over the broken-open tombs pulling out Adam from one tomb and Eve from the other.

 

But there is another image I would like to draw your attention to—a more interactive image.

 

That image is, of course, the image of the labyrinth.

 

One of the many images used in walking the labyrinth is, of course, the Harrowing of Hell. 

 

When you think of the labyrinth, you can almost imagine Christ trekking his way down to the very bowels of hell, of sheol, of the grace.

 

There, he takes those waiting for him and gently and lovingly leads them back through the winding path to heaven. 

 

It’s lovely to imagine and, whether it’s true or not, I like to cling to that image.

 

As a follower of Jesus, I find the story of the Harrowing of Hell to be so compelling.

 

And in one sense, I actually DO believe in hell.

 

The hell of our own making.

 

The hells we ourselves have created right here, right on earth.

 

The hells we have going on within us at times.

 

In that sense, I can say that I have more certainly been there.

 

I’ve been to hell.

 

More than once.

 

As we all have.

 

I have known despair.

 

I have known that feeling that I thought I would actually die from bleakness.

 

Or wished I could die.

 

But didn’t.

 

Even death wasn’t, in that moment, the worst thing that could happen.

 

That place of despair was.

 

It’s the worst place to be.

 

Which is why this morning’s liturgy is so important to me.

 

In the depth of hell, even there, when we think there is no one coming for us—just when we’ve finally given up hope, Someone does.

 

Christ comes to us, even there.

 

He comes to us in the depths of our despair, of our personal darkness, of that sense of being undead, and what does he do?

 

He leads us out.

 

I know this is a very unpopular belief for many Christians.

 

Many Christians simply cannot believe it.

 

Hell is eternal, they believe

 

And it should be.

 

If you turn your back on God, then you should be in hell forever and ever, they believe.

 

If you do wrong in life, you should be punished for all eternity, they will argue.

 

I don’t think it’s any surprise to any of you to hear me say that I definitely don’t agree.

 

And my faith speaks loudly to me on this issue.

 

The God I serve, the God I love and believe in, is not a God who would act in such a way.

 

So, yes, there is a hell.

 

As I said, I’ve been there.

 

The hell I believe most certainly exists.

 

And many of us—most of us—have been there at least once.

 

Some of us have been there again and again.

 

Any of us who have suffered from depression or severe anxiety, or have lost a loved one, or have doubted our faith, or have thought God is not a God of love—we have all known this hell. 

 

But none of them are eternal hells.

 

I do believe that even those hells will one day come to an end.

 

I do believe that Christ comes to us, even there, in the depths of those personal hells.

 

I believe that one day, even those hells will be harrowed and emptied, once and for all.

 

Until that day happens, none of us should be too content.

 

None of us should rejoice too loudly.  

 

None of should exult in our own salvation, until salvation is granted to all.

 

If there is an eternal hell and punishment, my salvation is not going to be what I thought it was.  

 

And that is the real point of this day.

 

I love the fact that, no matter where I am, no matter where I put myself, no matter what depths and hells and darknesses I sink myself into, even there Christ will find me. 

 

And I know that the Christ I serve and follow will not rest until the last of his lost loved ones is found and brought back.

 

It’s not a popular belief in the Christian Church.

 

And that baffles me.

 

Why isn’t it more popular?

 

Why do we not proclaim a Savior who comes to us in our own hells and bring us out?

 

Why do we not proclaim a God of love who will bring an end, once and for all, to hell? 

 

We as Christians should be pondering these issues.

 

And we should be struggling with them.

 

And we should be seeking God’s knowledge on them.

 

On this very sad, very bleak Holy Saturday morning, I find a great joy in knowing that, as far as we seem to be in this moment from Easter glory, Easter glory is still happening, unseen by us, like a seed slowly blooming in the ground.

 

That Victory of God we celebrate this evening and tomorrow morning and throughout the season of Easter is more glorious than anything we can imagine.

 

And it is more powerful than anything we can even begin to comprehend.

 

In my own personal hells the greatest moment is when I can turn from my darkness toward the light and find consolation in the God who has come to me, even there, in my personal agony.

 

Even there, God in Christ comes to me and frees me.

 

God has done it before.

 

And I have no doubt God will do it again.  

 

In the bleak waters of abandonment, God has sent the buoy, the lifesaver of Christ to hold us up and bring us out of the waters.

 

That is what we are celebrating this Holy Saturday morning.

 

That is how we find our joy.

 

Our joy is close at hand, even though it seems gone from us.

 

Our joy is just within reach, even in this moment when it seems buried in the ground and lost.