Holy Saturday is a day of awkward silence. But the silence is important because it helps us remember that this day is a Holy Saturday. The black of Good Friday has not yet been shattered by the white of Easter Sunday. Today I want to offer up a reflection from Professor Christopher Beeley:
How far does love reach? How dark can things get before God writes us off?
Holy Saturday is not an interlude in the grand story of salvation. It is at once the darkest of days and the very climax of God’s loving-kindness. On this day Christ “descended to the dead,” as the Apostles’ Creed has it (see Ephesians 4:9; 1 Peter 3:19–20).
Following his crucifixion, Jesus the beloved Son joined in solidarity with the dead of all times and entered into death itself. Mystery of mysteries! The Son of God, Life itself, underwent the horror and alienation of hell, of everything that opposes God, even abandonment by God. There is no greater paradox.
Baffling and repugnant as it may seem, Jesus’ entombment reveals that God’s love and mercy and coming judgment are meant precisely for the dead—whether those whose bodies have passed from this earthly life, those who are dying spiritually even as they live, or the very permanence of death that remains for those who choose separation from God.
It was the whole point all along. Christ became human to enter into death and so to defeat it. Any other target is a false substitute for the Christian gospel and a thin band of hope.
Because Christ has died and descended to the dead, there is nothing whatsoever that can separate us from the love of God—not even death, the last enemy (Romans 8:38–39; 1 Corinthians 15:26).