Year C Holy Saturday 2022 Three Incomprehensibles

Holy Saturday, 16 April 2022

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“Three Incomprehensibles”

Collect: O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

1 Peter 4:1-8

Since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin), so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God. You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme. But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.

The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.

Matthew 27:57-66

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, "Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, `After three days I will rise again.' Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, `He has been raised from the dead,' and the last deception would be worse than the first." Pilate said to them, "You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can." So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.

As we ponder Holy Saturday, this is the intermission in the story. The Triduum is a play in three acts, with Maundy Thursday being the set up of the conflict and we commiserate and identify with the main characters. Act Two is Good Friday where the worst happens and we do not see a way out, and here we are in the Intermission. Between Acts 2 and 3 we wonder what could possibly reverse the irreversible.

And as we sit in the silence and fear between what happened and what is to come I invite you to ponder three incomprehensible things with me.

First, how does something eternal die? How can the author of life be dead? One thing that everyone agreed on, is that Jesus died. In that there was no question. Everyone agreed. The Roman soldiers who could not understand how he was dead before they went to break his legs. They were surprised, but they did not question his death. The Jewish leaders knew the power of an idea. They detested Jesus and the power he represented. They knew that the disciples could endanger them still, that is why Matthew shares the part of the story when the leaders said: 

… We remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, `After three days I will rise again.' Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day.

They were scared that this was not over. They had to post soldiers to fight an idea. AN IDEA. 

But ideas have a hard time dying. And the Author of Life has a hard time staying dead. He promised as much, over and over and over again. Remember, when Moses asked the burning bush the name of God, God said I AM. That is and always will be present tense. God cannot be I WAS.

But for what reason does Life Eternal die? As a preacher I have an answer, but Holy Saturday is made for questions, it is made for pondering and musing. Still that first one in your craw.

Second incomprehensible, where did Jesus go? In our creed we say that he descended to the dead. Now we have to rethink the afterlife. The Scriptures are not Dante. The afterlife in the Hebrew mind is Sheol. A place of consciousness but not necessarily a place of reward or punishment, a gathering place for maybe a judgment day to come. (It depends on which school of Judaism you ask.)

Peter alludes to this “descending to the dead” we say in the creed. He says of the Dead: 

They will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.

Where did Jesus go? To preach to those awaiting the Messiah. They had been judged “in the flesh” and had died. As he had. But he preached the Gospel to them, so that “they might live in the spirit as God does.” Even death itself cannot keep us from the love of God. Thanks be to God! As St. Paul said, “nothing can separate us from the love of God.” Nothing.

And that is where we come to the third incomprehensible, does Love really over a multitude of sins?

At the end of the New Testament reading, St. Peter says:

“The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.”

That is not just with one another, but it is with God, too. Christ came to preach that Good News, that Gospel he preached to us and to the Dead. God is Love, and wants us all to come home.

Ponder those, this day. This day of hiding inside, trying to wrap our minds around what took place yesterday. How could Life Eternal die? Where did Jesus go? Does Love cover it all, sin and death and all of the above?

That is enough for any day, and my craw is full. Amen