Posted on 04/04/2015 7:39:54 AM PDT by Salvation
Where is Christ after He dies on Friday afternoon and before He rises on Easter Sunday? Both Scripture and Tradition answer this question. Consider the following excerpt from a second century sermon as well as this meditation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday (ca. 2nd century A.D.):
Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great 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 Adam, our first father, 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 Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him—He who is both their 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 a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.”
Nothing could be more beautiful than that line addressed to Adam and Eve: “I am your God, who for your sake have become your Son.”
Scripture also testifies to Christ’s descent to the dead and what He did: For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. … For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does (1 Peter 3:18; 1 Peter 4:6).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Christ’s descent to the dead (excerpts from CCC # 632-635):
[The] first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell [is] that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead.
But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there [cf. 1 Pet 3:18-19]. 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 [cf. Phil 2:10; Acts 2:24; Rev 1:18; Eph 4:9; Pss 6:6; 88:11-13].
Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer [cf. Ps 89:49; 1 Sam 28:19; Ezek 32:17-32; Luke 16:22-26]. “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior … whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell” [Roman Catechism I, 6, 3].
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.
[So] the gospel was preached even to the dead. The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.
Christ went down into the depths of death so that “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” [1 Peter 4:6]. Jesus, “the Author of life”, by dying, destroyed “him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” [Heb 2:14-15; cf. Acts 3:15].
Henceforth the risen Christ holds “the keys of Death and Hades”, so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” [Rev 1:18; Phil 2:10].
Here is a recording of a sermon I preached on this topic: Where is Jesus Now.
Plus I’m a lot more kind to myself than most strangers are.
Not only was his cross a bridge, to break down the wall between Jew and Gentile. But he himself is the ladder in Jacobs dream, that the angels ascended and descended upon.
From the Cattedrale Patriarchale di San Marco. Notice that here the Conquering Jesus is stepping on a crouching, chained Satan (a common theme) while using His cross as a kind of walking stick or shepherd's staff.
He died so we could live. A true captain of saints and angels.
After Jesus arose, he was walking on a road and saw two disciples (I think it was), and he told them not to touch him now as he hadn’t gone to the Father yet. I am pressed for time or I would look up that scripture.
Glory to God, let the tears stream down the faces of a thousand saints.
Tears of sadness and joy.
Also, scripture says when Christ arose, dead people also arose and walked among the people for a time. Wish I had more time to post those scriptures.
God exists outside of time and space. We are constrained by it, though He is not.
Sometimes I have a hard time with it.
Just go with it.
I hear you. It is just a limit of my human mind.
The concept of time is one of the last things children learn. Are we there yet?
(Actually, I think He could bilocate before His resurrection, too.)
Yeah, he appeared and disappeared, walked through walls, walked on water, rose into the air... rose from the dead, is there anything he couldn’t do? Is there anything too hard for our God?
And yet he was humble. Humbled himself as a man.... bore the shame and humiliation of the cross...
Filled with compassion and love for the men who hated him, lied to him, abandoned him during his darkest hours.
He rose above us, yet lived and died for us.
He could have called a legion of angels, but chose instead to suffer and die in order to purchase our salvation.
with his own blood. We were purchased with his blood.
more precious than silver or gold.
They were in a waiting place waiting for Christ.
Christ tells the Good Thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
That “Paradise” is the waiting place.
Jesus was the first one into heaven. You have read how some of the believers arose from their graves in Jerusalem and were visible to the believers, but not those who put Jesus to death, aren’t you?
cc. Mrs. Don-o
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