A HUGGER-MUGGER BURIAL AND THE HARROWING OF HELL

Holy Saturday is a day when nothing happens. Our Book of Common Prayer introduces it with the prim and laconic rubric: There is no celebration of the Eucharist on this day. It’s an in-between sort of day: in between the anguish of Good Friday and the triumphant joy of Easter Sunday, in between a hugger- mugger burial and the harrowing of hell.

First, what do I mean by a hugger-mugger burial? “Hugger-mugger” is a word I really like. It means something done hastily, in a confused and disorderly manner, and secretly. The burial of Jesus had to be done in a frantic hurry. It had to be done without all the proper care and reverence that normally goes into a Jewish burial. It had to be done without attracting too much unwelcome attention.

All this because Jesus was crucified on a Friday. The Gospel of John calls it the Day of Preparation. It was the day before the Sabbath, and the Sabbath was a day of absolute rest when no work could be done. Anything that needed to be done needed to be finished before sunset on Friday, when the Sabbath began. Since Jesus died around the middle of the afternoon, it left only a few hours for his body to be buried. That Sabbath was an especially holy day. About once every seven years the festival of the Passover — the most important Jewish festival — fell on a Sabbath. This was one of those years.

As John tells the story, two heroes emerge, two faithful representatives of traditional Jewish piety. One was Joseph of Arimathea who worked up the courage to face the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and claim the body of Jesus. No cowardly wuss, this Joseph of Arimathea. The other was the Pharisee Nicodemus whom we met way back in the third chapter of John’s Gospel. At that time he came to Jesus by night, asked a couple of polite questions, and got totally flummoxed by the answers Jesus gave. Now he reappears, bringing with him a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes. No cheapskate, this Nicodemus.

1 Both Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus the Pharisee did the best they could in the short time they had. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths. They quickly placed the body in a new and unused tomb — the Gospel of Matthew tells us it was Joseph of Arimathea’s own tomb which he had newly prepared — and the job was done. A hugger- mugger burial: hasty, frantic, disorderly, secret.

And so the crucified body of God’s dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath. A day when nothing happens.

Now, second, what do I mean by the harrowing of hell? This is what is suggested in the second lesson Diane read for us, in the curious phrase, “the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead.” The harrowing of hell is what we are declaring each time we recite the Apostles’ Creed, when we say, “He descended to the dead.” In the old Rite One language, it’s even more graphic: “He descended into hell.” The Lord Jesus Christ did not descend to the dead in defeat and he certainly did not descend into hell to be punished. It was a divine rescue mission, a heroic victory.

The harrowing of hell as a separate event is a doctrine found mostly in Western Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox Church makes it an integral part of the Resurrection. In western art, the resurrected Jesus is usually shown emerging alone from his sarcophagus very much in the manner of a gentleman stepping out of a bathtub. Traditional Orthodox icons of the Resurrection are much livelier. Christ as heroic divine rescuer stomps down the doors of hell (the panels of which fall conveniently into the shape of a cross) and muckles onto Adam and Eve (one in each of his hands) and hauls them (and us) out of the deep, dark pit, which is shown to be littered with smashed locks and broken hinges and snapped chains.

Holy Saturday. A day when nothing happens? A day when everything changes. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and giving life to those in the tomb.

AMEN.

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