Holy Saturday

 

March 30, 2024

 

+We’re going to go back in time for a moment.

 

We’re not going back too far.

 

We are going back 20 years ago, to this time of year way back in 2004.

 

If you were any kind of active Christian in the United States during the Lent of 2004, there was an event happening that you were no doubt aware of.

 

For me, I remember it well.

 

I was a transitional deacon at the time.

 

I had been ordained a deacon the previous July, and I was anxiously awaiting my ordination to the Priesthood in June.

 

But during that Lent, this event caused many of us to crowd into West Acres Cinema.

 

And there, we saw the event that was The Passion of the Christ, directed by your favorite antisemitic, Trad Catholic director, Mel Gibson.

 

As you might have guessed, I HATED that film!

 

No. That’s not even strong enough to describe how I felt about that film.

 

I absolutely despised it!

 

It was a disgusting, antisemitic, gratuitously violent snuff film.

 

And what drove me over the edge with that film, was sitting in that crowded theatre, surrounded by busloads of weepy, overly sentimental evangelical Christians who were literally wailing when the film was over.

 

I remember turning to the people I went with and asked, “Didn't they know how that story was going to end?”

 

It was a strange moment.

Well, you might be asking, why am I bringing up this dark day in America cinema on Holy Saturday morning?

 

I am because, just recently, it was announced the SS Oberguppenfuhrer Gibson has directed a sequel to The Passion of the Christ.

 

I kid you not!

 

Now, I know what you’re thinking when you hear “sequel.”

 

You no doubt think, as I did, that a sequel to the Passion would be about…..what else?.....Easter. The Resurrection.

 

Au contraire, my friends!

 

It is most certainly NOT about the Resurrection.

 

It is, in fact, about the very even we are commemorating this morning.

 

It is about Jesus’ descent to hell.

 

Which actually has piqued my interest about the film.

 

And because it is, yes, sigh, I probably will go and endure the sequel.

 

Today of course is Holy Saturday.

 

And, as far as I know, we are the only church around here anyway gathering together on this bleak Saturday morning to celebrate this bare-bones liturgy.

 

But, as you have heard me say a million times: I love to preach about Holy Saturday and especially about the so-called Harrowing of Hell.  

 

I love to talk about Harrowing of Hell.

 

I love to mediate on it throughout the year.

 

I even encourage people who use it as their meditation as they walk our labyrinth.  

 

And I guess I love do so because Holy Saturday and what it represents is kind of ignored.

 

For the most part, Holy Saturday is not given a lot of attention by a majority of churches, at least here in the U.S.

 

In places like Mexico, it is a big day.

 

Holy Saturday in Mexico is also called Judas Day and it is on this day they burn effigies of Judas Iscariot. 

 

It is called Judas day because it is popularly believed that Judas committed suicide early on this day. 

 

But Holy Saturday and the so-called Harrowing of Hell is important.

 

It’s important because it’s a part of our humane experience.

 

Let’s face it, we’ve all been here.

 

We’ve been here, in this belly of    hell.

 

We’ve been in this place in which there is nothing.

 

Bleakness.

 

No hope.

 

Or so it seems.

 

It’s not just a bad place to be.

 

It’s the worst place to be.

 

We have been in that place in which we seemed abandoned.

 

Deserted.

 

No one was coming for us, we believed.

 

No one even knew we were here, in these depths of hell.

 

Hell.

 

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.

 

 

 

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

 

Jesus descended into hell and preached to those there.  

 

The popular term for this is the Harrowing of Hell.

 

He went to hell and harrowed until it was empty.

 

I always put out this ikon of Jesus on this Saturday.

 

In it, we see a glimpse of the Harrowing.

 

And what do we see?

 

We see Jesus lifting this man and this woman out of broken tombs.

 

That man and that woman are none other than Adam and Eve.

 

Jesus, the belief goes, on this day, went to hell----to the underworld where the dead slept----and brought them up.

 

He “harrowed” or raked hell for those souls trapped there.

 

Is this surprising to you?

 

Is this shocking to you?

 

Does this fly in the face of everything you thought you may have known about what happened on this day?

 

If so, all I can say is, “good!”

 

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

 

I find it compelling, because I’ve been there.

 

I’ve been to hell.

 

More than once.

 

As have many of us.

 

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.

 

Jesus comes to us, 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 God’s back should be turned to you and  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.

 

Now, I am not saying there isn’t a hell.

 

There is a hell.

 

As I said, I’ve been there.

 

But if there is some metaphysical hell in the so-called “afterlife,” I believe that, at some point, it will be completely empty.

 

And heaven will be absolutely full.

 

What I do know is that the hell I believe in does exist.

 

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 anxiety, or have lost a loved one, or have doubted our faith, or have suffered several rejection or been ostracized or discarded 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 Jesus 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 Jesus will find me. 

 

And I know that the Jesus 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 brings us out?

 

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

 

But let’s not leave it there.

 

Do you want to get even more controversial?

 

Here’s a wildly unpopular theological theory that has garnered me some very heated arguments.

 

There is a belief from the very early Church that poses this question:

 

Is Christ truly victorious if anyone is still left in hell?

 

Namely one last person.

 

The Devil.

 

Satan.

 

The belief is that, at the very end, Jesus will descend into he very darkest, deepest corner of hell, will find the Devil, will take, like Adam and Eve, by the hand and will take him out, redeemed and restored.

 

Only then, will the victory of Christ finally be complete.

 

It’s radical to some.

 

It flows counter to what most of us have been taught about our faith.

 

But it also opens our faith, and shows us the true love and power of God present in creation.

 

We as Christians should be pondering these issues.

 

And we should be struggling with them.

 

We should be wrestling with them.

 

And we should be seeking God’s knowledge of 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 so close.

 

It is still happening, unseen by us, like a seed slowly blooming in the ground.

 

That Victory of God we celebrate 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’s light and love comes to me even there in that darkness 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 sends us just what we need to hold us up and bring us out of the waters.

 

There is no place in which God’s love does not permeate.

 

Even in the deepest caverns of hell, even there God’s love and light permeates.

 

That is what we are celebrating this Holy Saturday morning.

 

That is where we find our joy.

 

Our joy is close at hand, even in those moments when it seems that our joy has gone from us.

 

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

 

Amen.