Notes on Holy Saturday

Note: At some point in the future this will be adapted into an essay.

• Hans Ulrich von Balthasar, "Mysterium Paschale" deals with Easter mystery. Significant point: the Apostles' Creed: "He suffered, died and was buried. He descended into Hell", reflections on the latter. Christ descended and became death, in order for others to ascend. Death therefore overpowered.


• Christ no longer exercises mastery over death, but dies, when he becomes death he overpowers death. On Holy Saturday death is victorious before the defeat on Easter Sunday.


• Hades/Sheol as a "waiting room" for those awaiting resurrection. Sharing death does not overcome it, but Jesus must go deeper for death to be overcome. Not just a descent into Hell but a descent into death.


• Must distinguish between "the dead" and death as such. The reason for the dead is that death has acted upon the living. Christ does not share time with the dead but come face to face with death itself.


• Death is immobility, a move from action to inaction. In the story of Christ and Lazarus (John 11), the action is still there in Christ. The story is populated by commands. Three commands of movement are made from one both active and in control (Jesus). Death cannot resist, Jesus exercises mastery. We do not master death, it masters us - death is the commander of life. Death manifests when people are stilled. Death cannot be confronted when there is action, hence the Passio(n) [Passio - passivity]. The passion has Jesus being inactive (though in control in John) and passive to what is being done. Death achieves itself when Jesus ceases to move on the cross.


• The dead Jesus joins "the dead" but has not yet become death. Holy Saturday shows Jesus becoming death, battling death. Jesus allows death to overcome him so that there is no longer any difference between them. Death finds itself redeemed, it is no longer the final thing.


• Hell is death rather than punishment, the Kingdom of the Dead.


• Movement from Good Friday to Easter Sunday cannot bypass Holy Saturday, cannot concentrate on the instant glorification on the cross which is Johannine. Must allow death to affect us. Must allows tears, and must allow grief. We cover up death and deny death in beautifying the dead and in covering their faces that death may not look at us. Where there is no hope, there is death, there was no hope on the cross, eloi, eloi etc.

Hans Ulrich von Balthasar

PRELIMINARIES ON METHOD

• Balthasar begins by praising the gospels for their silence. For he says death calls for this silence [1] because it is a time to pay respect to the dead. For Balthasar death is not just the act of dying, but a summation.


• Point One: Jesus was "really dead", he did not use the so called brief time of his death for all manners of 'activities' in the world beyond [2]. Jesus as solidarity figure on earth and in solidarity with the dead in the tomb.


• Theological defenders and adversaries of a descendus ad infera [descent into hell] give this concept to an action that only a living man can perform. In the Creeds there is only a burial for three days along with the resurrection which is this solidarity with the dead.


• Ascention as a return to the Father, the light of heaven "above" and the graves "below".


• Jesus passive agent in resurrection and ascent.

THE NEW TESTAMENT

• The OT has no commerce between the dead and the living God. But the power of Yahweh over the dead is mentioned.


• Emphasis on Jesus' return from the dead, he did not just visit to see the corruption there.


• See Deuteronomy 30:12, Psalm 107:26. Death means being in the abyss. Ephesians 4:8ff, ascent and descent into the lower parts of the earth. Solidarity with the dead who are freed. Romans 14:9 physical death, and solidarity with those who died. Background concepts of sin and death. Matthew 16:18 Christ requires deliverance from death in order to bind and unbind on earth as in heaven, leaving the "gates of hell" impotent. Revelation 1:18 "I died...I am alive evermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades", not struggle or descent but absolute power. The Lord was dead and now lives eternally. He has vanquished death itself.

SOLIDARITY IN DEATH

• Special treatment of the corpse of Jesus - it must be put into the earth, become one with the dead and have solidarity with them, rather than remaining on the cross as was the norm.


• SHEOL: One is unredeemed with the dead which signifies a solidarity. Without this solidarity the condition of standing before God would not be complete. Sheol must be understood in the OT sense. Augustine - testimony of Sheol is exegetically weak but theologically strong in letter to Evodius. He distinguishes between a lower infernum - where the "rich man" is and a higher, where Lazarus is. The two are separated by the chaos magnum but both belong to Hades. Christ descended into the lower infernum to deliber the sinners by grace.


• BEDE: Hell is an "act". The Devil carries his Hell with him wherever he goes. Shared in the Summa of Alexander of Hales. Augustine admitted the spiritual character of hell. The soul is spiritual therefore can experience the play of mental images, and by them be tormented or blessed. Pulleyn - what separates the rich man and Lazarus is their spiritual state not a physical reality.


• Ultimate solidarity is the aim of the first descent into a lower world, the infernum (Augustine). Aquinas - the necessity for Christ to go to Hades is not due to insufficient suffering on the Cross but because Christ has assumed the defectus of sinners. The terrors of death which Jesus falls to are only dispelled by the resurrection - the aim of the incarnation. Tertullian - only what has been endured is healed and saved, hence the necessity of death.


• Problems with original sin. Before Christ was present there was an order of salvation orientated towards Christ where humans had to co-operate with the grace of Christ and await redemption. Hades is conditional, the man who is already reconciled with God cannot be reconciled except through christ, to possess this grace he cannot be waiting for CHrist since he already has something of the Christ-life inside him. On the other hand, we cannot experience in temporal terms the taking on of the experience of Sheol by the Redeemer. Christ takes it upon himself to be compassionate in this time of horror and sets the limits of damnation.

THE BEING DEAD OF THE SON OF GOD

• Given that the Redeemer, in his solidarity with the dead, has spared them the experience of death, in order to show faith, love and hope, he took the whole experience on himself. In doing so the Redeemer showed himself as the only one who was able to measure the depths of the abyss.


• Here, we can reject as incomplete a theology of death which limits Jesus' solidarity with sinners to the act of decision in the moment of dying. Rather we must say that for the death of christ to be inclusive, it must be simultaneously exclusive and unique in its expiatory value.


• Luther & Calvin: Jesus experienced on the Christ Hell's tortures in the plae of sinners, thus rendering a similar experience of Hell on Holy Saturday irrelevant. Luther - even the dead Christ had to experience hell, this suffering marks his triumph over hell. Calvin - importance is in the suffering, a direct struggle with death. The God-abandonment which began on the Mount of Olives, continued on Calvary and came to a climax on Holy Saturday.


• Nicholas of Cusa - The vision of death...is the most complete punishment possible...the soul of Christ went down to the underworld, where the vision of death is...When God raised Christ he drew him from out of the lower underworld...He alone through such a death entered into glory...so as to show that one should obey the Father even to the utmost torture. [3]


• If one asks about the work of Christ in Hades, or about the fruit Christ brought forth there, we must guard against that theological busyness and religious impatience which insist on anticipating the moment of fruiting of the eternal redemption through the temporal passion, on dragging forward that moment from Easter to Holy Saturday.

[1] Mysterium Paschale, p148

[2] ibid

[3] ibid p170-1