THE HOLY Week story does not end with Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday. Yes, he was a victim of the most unjust trial ever – an innocent man condemned to die a criminal’s death; a sinless person entrusted to the hands of sinful men. He was scourged at the pillar, crowned with thorns, humiliated and terribly tortured, so much so that Isaiah 52:14 described him as the suffering servant whose “appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being.” He carried his heavy cross and upon reaching Golgotha (Calvary), was nailed onto it, dying a truly excruciating death. Then his body was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, assisted by Nicodemus and some of the women who followed him from Galilee.
If the story ended there, the Holy Week story could have been the most tragic story of all times. St. Paul writes, “And if Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. Then we are also false witnesses to God, because we testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all” (1 Corinthians 15:14-19). But thanks be to God, Good Friday was followed by Holy Saturday, and then climaxing into the Easter Sunday.
What happened on Holy Saturday? As Jesus’ physical body laid still on his tomb, his Spirit was elsewhere. An often-misunderstood line in the Apostle’s Creed is that part in which we profess, “He descended into hell.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church (in pars. in 633) sheds light on this. It teaches us that: “Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, ‘hell’ - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer, which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into ‘Abraham's bosom.’ It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham's bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell. Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.”
Biblical support for this can be found in Ephesians 4:8-9, “When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people. What does ‘he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?” And in 1 Peter 4:6, it says, “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.”
On to Easter Sunday, we received the greatest news ever: Jesus was raised from the dead. In doing so, he conquered death which entered creation because of Adam’s disobedience in the Genesis story at the Garden of Eden. Thus, St. Paul could write, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). As Jesus declared earlier, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).
This is the beauty of the Easter message. Goodness prevailed over evil; God was victorious over Satan. What Satan thought was God’s downfall, God used to claim victory for himself and his children. By dying and resurrecting from the dead, he restored life to you and me. Now we can hold on to the promise that no matter how hard life on earth becomes, we await a better life in heaven where there is no more pain and suffering, only perfect peace, joy and love. And even as we journey to our eternal home, we can be assured that God will never leave us nor forsake us. “He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him” (Romans 8:32)?
We are an Easter people, and our hope rests on the Risen Christ.
Happy Easter, everyone.