The Painted Prayerbook

Image: Holy Saturday © Jan Richardson

Reading from the Gospels, Holy Saturday: Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42

At the end of my yoga session this morning, I relaxed into the pose that’s called Savasana, or the Corpse Pose. On this day of thinking about Christ in the tomb, the pose gave me pause.

I thought of a visit to Minnesota a few years ago, and how a friend took me to a nearby Catholic church where you can take a drive-through tour of the Stations of the Cross. Each station offers a large carved relief, with the most elaborate being a life-sized rendering of the Crucifixion. Beneath the Crucifixion, you can look through a sheet of plexiglass to see Christ stretched out in his tomb. It is…interesting. Not the kind of thing that a Methodist girl often comes across.

On Holy Saturday, the lectionary presents us with a choice of Gospel readings. Both readings describe the burial of Christ, with Joseph of Arimathea figuring in each one. Matthew’s version tells us that Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” (the mother of James and Joseph) were present, sitting opposite the tomb as Joseph of Arimathea laid Jesus in the tomb, rolled a stone across its entrance, and walked away. In John’s Gospel, Nicodemus helps Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus’ burial, bringing a hundred pounds (a hundred pounds!) of myrrh and aloes that he and Joseph use as they wrap Jesus in his shroud and lay him in the tomb. I love how Nicodemus, whom we encountered on the second Sunday of Lent, shows up again here; the man who questioned Jesus about the womb now tends his body at the tomb.

Though the Sabbath soon descended after Jesus was laid in the tomb, some traditions hold that Jesus did not rest on this day. We see evidence of this in the Apostles’ Creed, in versions that follow the words “crucified, dead, and buried” with “He descended into hell” (or “He descended to the dead”). The idea that Christ descended into hell is particularly prevalent in Orthodox Christianity. It’s also known as the Descent into Hades, the Harrowing of Hell, or the Anastasis (Resurrection). Searching online for artwork depicting this scene, I found one image titled “Christ Visits Hell,” which makes it sound like a vacation. Artwork of the Descent regularly depicts Christ releasing Adam, Eve, and others from captivity in the underworld, such as in this image from the 12th-century Winchester Psalter. The Descent embodies the idea that the one who fully entered our humanity on earth and thereby freed us was able also to enter even into hell and release those in bondage there.

Whatever Christ was up to (or down to) on Holy Saturday, for his followers it was a day of sorrow and bewilderment. Bereft of the one around whom they had shaped their lives, they had to choose whether they would isolate themselves in their sorrow and fear, or whether they would remain together and wait for a way to present itself.

Holy Saturday is not a day for answers. It is a threshold day, a day that lies between, and so resists any easy certainty. It is a day of waiting, of remembering to breathe, of willing ourselves to turn to one another when grief lays hold of us. It is a day to open ourselves to the one who goes into the places of deepest pain and darkest fear, in order to bring us out.

What stirs within you on this holy, in-between day?

[To use the image “Holy Saturday,” please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Your use of janrichardsonimages.com helps make the ministry of The Painted Prayerbook possible. Thank you!]

This entry was posted on March 21, 2008 at 9:51 PM and is filed under art, Gospel of John, Gospel of Matthew, lectionary, Lent, medieval. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.