"Being Dead with the Dead God"

Darkness. Dust. Silence. Solitude. Passivity. Powerlessness. Joylessness. The deprivation of all strength and vitality. To be, but to “be” in such a condition as to be deprived of everything but being itself. To be, but to “be” as if one were not. Such are the descriptions of the realm of the dead (Sheol/Hades) in the Old Testament, and such was the realm to which Jesus went on Holy Saturday. During his earthly life, Jesus had been in solidarity with the living; on Holy Saturday, he entered into solidarity with the dead, so that he might forge a path for his fellow human beings out of the realm of death and into eternal life with God the Father.

Jesus descended into the farthest reaches of hell, so that even the sinner who tries to run as far away from God as possible will ultimately find himself running into the arms of Christ. Jesus endured the greatest possible separation from God so that he might bring as many sinners as possible back to God. St. Athanasius gave bold expression to this claim:
The Lord has touched all parts of the creation . . . so that each might find the Logos everywhere, even the one who has strayed into the world of demons.

May I suggest that each of us spend at least a little time on Holy Saturday reflecting on the beauty and depth of the divine love that would go to the farthest extremes of death and hell for our sake and for the sake of all of our fellow human beings? The more fully we allow ourselves to accompany Jesus in spirit on this most holy of all Saturdays, the more fully we can then rejoice in the annual celebration of our Lord’s (and therefore our) Easter passage from death into eternal life.

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