“O God, in Christ you have searched the depths we cannot fathom, and touched the dread we cannot bear to name: grant us the grace of patient stillness and the courage to sit with uncertainty, that we may wait in hope for your promised dawn of redemption; through Jesus Christ our Savior, by whose name even the gates of Hell cannot stand. Amen.”
This day is one of my favorites on the Christian calendar, the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. After a very full and busy liturgical week with intense religious fervor and a few logistical meltdowns, eveytyhing suddenly becomes still and quiet.
To be sure, items remain on the “to do” list, whether its polishing brass, rehearsing music, or finishing an Easter sermon (!) but the pace has slowed…except for Jesus.
Yes, this is obviously, in one respect, a day when the crucified Jesus is in the tomb, but there are certain strands of Christian traditions that suggest something a bit more active and even dramatic: Jesus harrows Hell on this day. Descending not only into death, in other words, but into the depths of Hell itself, Jesus launches a rescue mission by demolishing the gates of Hades and liberating everyone who is there.
Everyone, no exceptions.
The classic icons of this dramatic scene include (as illustrated above) the wonderful moment of yanking a startled Adam and Eve from their tombs and dragging them into new life.
I like to expand that vision even further to include the wider world of other-than-human creatures and places. On this day when God leaves no one behind, all animals, and plants, and rivers, and trees, and everything that is declared “good” and “very good” in the biblical book of Genesis is taken up into the new life of Easter.
Everything.
I know this universal vision of divine life make some people nervous and uncomfortable. But how could it be otherwise? How could Creator God, revealed in Beloved Jesus, ever bear to leave anyone or any thing out of the promise of new life?
Artist Doug Blanchard included a marvelous image in his “Passion of the Christ–a Gay Vision” series for this very day, this day of breaking down the prison walls of Hell for a breathtaking vision of Easter. I feel privileged and deeply honored to have this painting on my wall in the rectory; pairing it with the traditional icon above creates a synergy of spiritual insight, a rush of grateful hopefulness on this singular, remarkable day when God leaves no one and no thing behind.
May we live into that divine promise as a people of unshakable joy.
