So why did Jesus descend into hell? To tell the saints, "wake up and go back to sleep"?
An “Ancient Homily” of the early Church for Holy Saturday captured this event: “The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and He has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began.... He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, He has gone to free from sorrow the captives of Adam and Eve, He who is both God and the Son of Eve.... ‘I am your God, who for your sake have become your Son.... I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.”