The incarnation of Jesus raises many questions. Who is this man? Who is the Son of Man? Why did the God-man die? And perhaps most commonly on Holy Saturday, where was Jesus on the evening of Good Friday until Easter morn?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

However, first let us ask ourselves a question. Where were you when they crucified our Lord?

I was there, mocking Him, scoffing at Him, and yelling for Him to come down from the tree and to save Himself. In my haste and ignorance, I thought if He came down from the tree, then perhaps He could save me, when in reality, He was exactly where He knew He must be. I was there hounding the herald of the Father all the while He quoted Psalm 22, practically begging us to read it with Him so that we might know the One whom we pierced. Alas, I was too busy parting His garments and being the fat bull of Bashan that I am.

Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?

Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?

I was shamefully nailed beside Him to a different tree. I despised the man of sorrows next to me, and I hurled insult upon insult against the man next to me. I joined in as though I were one of the self-righteous Pharisees who denied Him or the Sadducees who feared Him. My mocking knew no bounds, despite my sentence being just while His was unjust.

Yet, a prodding of my heart was felt. Somehow, compassion grew for this man, who was more than a mere man, hanging next to me. This man acquainted with grief might have been rejected by men, yet I saw Him anew. The sign above His head no longer read as an accusation, but as truth: “The King of the Jews.” Desperate to right the wrongs that had poured from my mouth, I hastily muttered to this king, “Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” (Luke 23:42, KJV). He turned and weakly replied, “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43, KJV).

Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?

Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?

Where was I when Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus took the body of our Lord off the Cross? I was denying Him with Peter. I was fleeing from Him, naked and alone like John. I was hiding from the Sanhedrin and Romans alike, fearful and trembling in the upper room with the disciples.

Jesus personally chose the Twelve. None of them remained faithful. Yet two secret disciples, a rich man of all people! (a frequent motif in Jesus’ parables) named Joseph, and the close-minded Nicodemus (who could not understand the need to be born again in John 3) are the only two sons of Adam who faithfully recover and prepare the body of Son of Man for the sabbath. (Gospel lesson, Matthew 27:57, John 19:28-42). Where were the disciples? Hidden. Where were Joseph and Nicodemus, the previously secret disciples? In plain sight, asking Pilate for the body of our Lord for burial. Reader, is your faith hidden? Today is the time to unmask it and proclaim your identity in Christ.

Our lives are hidden in Christ; therefore, let us manifest visibly the Lord Jesus within our lives. Take up the empowering prayer of today’s collect and pray to “Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continually mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him.” Our death is united to His death. Christ’s death is a fulfillment of the sabbath. Just as He rested on the seventh day of creation, so does the Word of God rest on the seventh day of new creation as He lies in the tomb. By His faithful obedience to the Father, taking sabbath even in His death, we may enter into His victory so “that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection, for his merits, who died and was buried and rose again for us, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” Amen.

Where was I during our Lord’s Passion? Crucifying Him, abandoning Him, fleeing from Him, and towards the depths of the abyss to the earth’s foundations. Yet even “if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.” (Psalm 139:8, KJV).

Suddenly, amidst the darkness of hell, thunder echoed throughout both the Sheol of my soul and hell itself. Light stormed into my heart and bound the strong man. Christ descended into the depths of my soul and stole it away from the evil one. Jesus died in a weakened body as a man of no esteem, but burst into Satan’s domain – hell, Hades, and simultaneously into my heart and soul – and He took me alongside many captives.

This is no poetry, but truly happened on Holy Saturday, for as we confess in the Apostles’ Creed, “He descended into hell.” Yet this once and for all harrowing of hell also happens every time Christ invades the hearts of those who are called unto Him. Jesus dipped into the earth and took up the patriarchs, prophets, and past saints, and He still dips His hands into the souls of men to give us new hearts. We visually see Christ acting when we are dipped with Him into the baptismal waters. Yes, I say dipped, for the ancient 1662 prayer book’s rubric prefers it. Hence, we pray this Holy Saturday “that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continually mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him.” (Collect, Easter Even).

Our prayer is to unite ourselves to the Eternal Living Word who tasted death so that when we die, we may live. We pray to die while alive, so we may live when we enter our own tomb. We cry out to the Lord because He liberated the saints of the old covenant into the heavenly realm, “that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection, for his merits, who died and was buried and rose gain for us, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” Amen.

To return to a question, “Where was Christ on Holy Saturday?” we can answer that He was bodily in the tomb and storming the gates of hell. Christ made a mockery of Satan’s claims upon the earth and under the earth by invading what the devil thought was his domain. But Satan has no claim on God’s creation, and the Word who spake it into existence reclaimed what is rightfully His and truly made His enemies – sin, death, and the devil – into His footstool. Christ burst forth into sheol and openly mocked the “principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15 KJV) when “he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah.” (First lesson, 1 Peter 3:19-20, KJV). The nephilim, the demons, the rebellious angels of old, and satan too received an earful from the Living God, who took the souls belonging to Him.

It is a marvel of marvels and must have been a sight to behold. This is the power of God, that He redeems those oppressed by the evil one. This is the love of God made manifest, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” (1 Peter 3:18, KJV). Our epistle lesson then ties us back into the collect and how we prayed to be united in Christ’s death in our own baptism, when Peter tells us that just as “in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing” to save Noah and the eight souls of his family, so too “even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 3:20-21, KJV).

There comes a point in man’s journey towards trusting in Christ, that he no longer asks where Jesus has been all his life, to transcending into asking the question, how could Christ have given so much for someone so small and insignificant as me? Crossing over that Jordan is akin to crossing over from death to life, from wilderness to Promised Land, from Egypt to Canaan. The question of how could a righteous God descend and dare to die for a wicked and fallen creation is better rephrased, “What wondrous love is this?”

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!

What wondrous love is this, O my soul!

What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss

to lay aside his crown for my soul, for my soul,

to lay aside his crown for my soul.

Where has Christ been? Right beside you, before you, and above you, hanging upon the Cross. Do you wish to see Love? Then look up to the Cross. Are you searching for healing – deep and permanent healing? Cast your eyes upon Jesus. Do you doubt the love that God has for you and His will for your life? See the Living God quietly laid out upon the rock of the tomb, where His body is quiet, but His soul is sinking down into the depths to raise those who held out hope in Him and Him alone.

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,

when I was sinking down, O my soul!

When I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown,

Christ laid aside His crown for my soul, for my soul,

Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.

Where I sink and go, there too does the Lord God go. There is no domain off-limits to Him. Christ is not a prince who condemns us nor looks down upon us after leaving His heavenly realm. No, instead, he is the gracious Lord who pours Himself out like an offering so that we might be raised up.

Where is God when evil strikes? Dying on the cross at the hands of evil. Where is Christ when all hell breaks loose? At my side, breaking up hell’s domain and defanging Satan’s power so that no power or principality has a hold on us, for we are raised up with a host of captives to join the angelic host and their heavenly choir, singing:

To God and to the Lamb I will sing, I will sing,

to God and to the Lamb I will sing.T

o God and to the Lamb, who is the great I AM ,

while millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing,

while millions join the theme I will sing!

So dear Christian, for the one who believes in the God of love that died and went to hell for thee, there is hope and no fear for our own death. Because the same Jesus Christ who died is resurrected and more than resurrected, “who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.” (1 Peter 3:22, KJV). Hell has no claim over you, believer, for you are heaven’s prize and captured treasure of the King. Your soul is the plundered goods that Christ took with Him after raiding sheol. Christ reigns, and all of creation – including His angels and even Satan and his demons – are subject to Him. More glorious, we too are now subjects to the King of kings and servants of God Most High. Therefore, let us rejoice, praise, and enter into the feast!

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,

and when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.

And when from death I’m free I’ll sing and joyful be,

and through eternity I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,

and through eternity I’ll sing on.

Questions – Easter Even (Holy Saturday)

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