Holy Saturday

Bishop Will Willimon, North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church, preached this sermon when he was Dean of the Chapel at Duke University in 1998.

Passage: I Peter 3:19

Where is Jesus now, this night, in this present darkness? Where might we seek him? He is dead. “He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He emptied himself freely accepting death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6). Where is Jesus? You know the words of the Creed: Suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead, and was buried, he descended into hell....”

That’s why this Chapel seems peculiarly dark, dismal, and empty tonight. The one for whom this great arched room was built, the one whose presence draws us on Sunday, is not here.

“Crucified died and was buried, he descended into hell.” Nineteenth Century Methodists removed that portion of the Creed, claiming it unbiblical. But it’s not. The First Epistle of Peter speaks of Christ’s descent into hell, called by the Church, “The Harrowing of Hell.” It’s from the Old English hergian, to harrow, to deposit. Tonight, Satan’s territory is being despoiled.

After his death this afternoon (at the hands of us good, Bible quoting religious people), when he breathed his last, Jesus, ever on the move, descended to hell. Having harassed us, the living, he descended to the dead. Tonight, he is there, preaching to them, cajoling, enticing those who had not the benefit of his life and words during their lives.

How did the church come up with such a notion? This “harrowing of hell”?

It was inconceivable to a church which had been the beneficiary of the intrusive, relentless, incursions of Jesus — the way he was forever speaking to us, prodding us, invading our settled world with his words, touching our wounds with his hands — it was inconceivable that some, so many, shall by their deaths, be excluded from his relentless, probing love. So for Virgil, and Plato, and the myriad who, by their deaths, had missed the advent of God with us, he came to them who could not have come to him.

He is there tonight, doing what he does so well, preaching, teaching, touching, relentlessly seeking, persuading, inviting, announcing the love and mercy of God. Psalm 16:10, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell....” Byzantine art depicted Jesus, in the jaws of hell, giving a hand to those who had died lifting them up, out of the darkness.

And though he is down there, and therefore not here, there is something to be said to those of us he has temporarily left behind. That word is this: Because I am there, tonight, descended into the deadly darkness, confronting the enemy on the enemy’s own turf, you have hope.

If he is there, then know well that nothing — no darkness, bereftness, or pain you experience, is immune from his gracious presence. If he, though he was God, is able to risk all, to wade deep into the death we so fear and avoid, then what might he risk for you?

Tonight, this usually gracious Chapel is rather cold, empty, cavernous, and dark. And, life being as it is, there will be nights for you that are cold, and dark, and alone. Hell is dark, bereft, and void. The Good News: Tonight, hell is being harrowed, emptied by the word and work of a relentlessly seeking savior who will not leave us be. He told us stories of the seeking Shepherd who forever seeks the one lost sheep, the faithful father who awaits the return of the one lost son, the relentless woman who does not rest until she finds the one coin (Luke 14). He meant what he said. There is no place where you languish, no darkness so dark, which places you beyond his seeking, searching, reach. He is willing to go all the way to Hell to bring his harvest home.

On a warm, Galilean day, he sat down on a hill and taught us to pray. You know that prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven....”
Tonight, he teaches us to pray a prayer you shall need on some dark night, a prayer which can give you infinite hope, even in the dark. That prayer: “Our Father who art in hell....”

[The orginal of Will’s Sermon is here.]

The powers and the principalities cannot prevail. The darkness cannot hide. The light has come, and nothing, NOTHING, NOTHING can overcome it!