That Awkward Saturday

I don't know that I've ever heard anything doctrinal about the Saturday that lies between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Good Friday, as I have just discovered, has a rich history of Church activity, including Tenebrae services like the one that blew me away yesterday morning. Easter Sunday, as we all know, is a time of celebration, though for what many Christians struggling with the delusions of Gnosticism may not know (see "To Begin With: Simply Christian"). But what about Saturday?

Some versions of the Apostle's Creed carry the words: "...was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell..." This rather shocking statement, if true, could perhaps have taken place in what we trapped in space-time would call Saturday: though whether it would have been a day for the incarnate Jesus or a thousand years for the Son of God is unclear. Still, this doctrine is troubling, which is why many modern churches have dropped the phrase from the creed. After all, Jesus said on the cross that "It is finished." It seems a little confusing that the crucifixion would have been just the gateway to an even more horrifying reality. Surely the cry of "lama sabacthani" was pain enough, and doctrinally we would have to label that separation from God as "hell," even though it ignores the idea of a physical place of hell (which may be more a Dantean idea than a biblical one). However, much church teaching on Jesus' descent (and this is even evident in the Inferno) is that it was salvation for the righteous dead, such as Abraham and David and the like. Apparently in the other-worldly state of hell, these men still had to wait for the chronological Jesus, a sad fate indeed for having been born too early. But perhaps truth lies in this, making Christ's descent stage 1 of his victory rather than the final state of his suffering. Or perhaps the two are concurrent (http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p122a5p1.htm).

On the other hand, Jesus' promise to the theif that they would spend the day in Paradise might relocate Jesus for earthly Saturday. Also, the fact that this was the Sabbath, and in a sense the last one fully celebrated by the disciples (although how strongly they partook in an institution that in their day was being run by the men that had crucified their Messiah is an interesting question). The Sabbath was a day of rest and of conclusion. Set within the Easter story, this Sabbath between Jesus' death and resurrection could be a symbol of post-death rest, the kind alluded to by Paul who speaks of the brothers who have fallen asleep (I Cor. 11:30, for example). Perhaps Jesus traveled to the transitory place which could be more properly called "heaven," a place of rest for the saints who await the resurrection of the dead (although this also could run aground with the idea of time just as Christ's descent did in the last paragraph).

The actual nature of that awkward Saturday is a mystery, and for many purposes that may be a good thing. To me, it seems that Saturday is something we can all relate to as the space of time between crucifixion and resurrection. Christians have been justified by the cross "once for all" (Heb. 7:27) but still await the resurrection and parousia (return or "reappearance"). We live in the awkward between-times, the time of already/not yet. We are called to have hope even though Jesus often seems to be hidden, laid behind an immovable rock and wrapped in linen so that he could neither see our needs nor move to help us. At the same time, we are called to join with Christ in the sufferings of Good Friday, taking the stand that will cause persecution and through submission and peace offering light to the world. But we also hold the concrete victory of Easter, when new creation began to enter into the present and the hope which seemed insane on Saturday was vindicated. This is the awkward state that we live in, inhabiting all three days at once. Saturday seems to me a day to focus on hope and prayer. Saturday is a day to scream "Maranatha!" ("Come, Lord Jesus.")