Meditations on Christ's Death, burial, and Resurrection

Good Friday, Holy Saturday & Easter Sunday

“Musings on His and Our Death, Burial, and Resurrection”

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            I leave off my series on self-identity for this greatest of Christian holy seasons.  But in reality I do not so much leave off the series as jump to the climax from where I had left off with some thoughts on the six days of creation.  The Christian’s self-identity is focused upon and derived from the Christian’s connection to the events of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.  The truth of these three days is that Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures under Pontius Pilate, was buried, and according to witnesses and Apostolic teaching rose from the dead on the first day of the week.  It must be admitted that many have regarded the evidence to be shallow and more than a few have deemed the testimony as lacking true historical credentials.  So perhaps God has closed up the events of these days so that this greatest of historical events is available only to those who receive the truth of these days by faith.  The disciples themselves found the idea that Jesus had risen from the dead difficult to believe when a few women associated with Jesus’ followers had found the tomb empty and reported the words of an angel wondering why they sought Jesus with the dead.  The disciples, according to Luke 24:11 viewed the initial testimony of the women as “idle tales.”  During the next forty days Jesus, according to the Scriptures lingered on the earth and revealed himself to his witnesses, to a total of five hundred or so all in all, according to St. Paul’s historical account found in I Corinthians 15:1-8.  But Jesus did not choose to reveal himself to the world, but to his chosen disciples, his followers, his appointed witnesses.  We perhaps are given the best explanation when Jesus revealed himself to Thomas, “doubting Thomas” we call him, but they all doubted, he was simply the last one to whom Jesus revealed himself of the eleven who remained after Judas betrayed him.  Upon seeing Jesus arisen with the wounds upon his hand and side, Thomas bowed to him and worshipped him, saying, “My Lord and my God.”  Jesus then said to him, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”  (John 20:29)

Jesus had selected his multitude of witnesses and had called upon his apostles and his early church to carry the message of his life, teachings, death, burial, and resurrection to the ends of the earth.  He promised that the Holy Spirit would be present in their proclamation so as to convince men of sin, of Christ’s righteousness, and of the judgment to come.  From this time on, with very few exceptions those who would come to believe upon the name of Jesus Christ would come as those who had not seen and yet had believed.  It seemed to please the Father and the Son and the Spirit that this was to be how the church of the firstborn was to be built upon the earth.  It was a gospel to be hidden from the wise and granted to the foolish, hidden from the strong and granted to the weak.  It would especially be hidden from those who were wise in and of themselves, and those who were strong in and of themselves.  But to the weak, and the foolish would be given the wisdom and strength hidden from this world’s sight.  So is the death, burial, and resurrection historical?  It is for those to whom it has been revealed.  But it has been obscured from the sight of those who need no physician, who need no salvation, who are already righteous in themselves, who are already strong in themselves, who are already wise in themselves.  But to those who cry out in their weakness saying “Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner” then to them this death, this burial, and this resurrection is true although everything else in life is as a flower that blooms in the morning and fades away in a day and shrivels up and blows away before the next week.

However a Christian, in this day of a severely fractured and fragmented church of our Lord Jesus Christ, might believe about the sacraments; there is little doubt that the focus of each of our understanding of the sacraments, especially the two taught by our Lord, are connected to his death, burial, and resurrection.  We are baptized into his death, burial, and resurrection.  (Romans 6:1-10)  In the partaking of the bread and cup of the Lord’s Supper, Eucharist, Holy Communion, or the Divine Liturgy; whatever you might call the Supper we recognize that we partake of this remembering of his death until he comes again.  For those of us, who believe upon the Lord; we are the Lord’s body.  We partake of the Lord in the bread and cup.  I will not diminish the meaning of the bread and cup by giving my personal viewpoint on the mystery, but will simply encourage every believer in Christ within any of the traditions coming to faith in Christ to partake of Him and to see Him in the brother and sister who partakes with you remembering his death even until he returns to bless those who have not seen, yet have believed.  Our identity in the faith we believe and experience in the holy sacraments, or the ordinances if you so prefer, is in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The importance of the sacraments seems to have been prefigured in Christ’s appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus described in Luke 24.  He appeared to the two disciples and they discussed the events of Jesus’ death.  They did not realize to whom they were speaking.  He set before them an understanding of the death of the Christ according to the Scriptures.  He expressed these truths beginning with Moses and all the prophets.  Even so they did not realize that it was he, the Christ, who was speaking to them.  Then “he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and broke, and gave to them.  And their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight.” (Luke 24:30-31.)  This would set forth a pattern for the church from henceforth.  The Scriptures would be proclaimed and the Lord would be presented in the giving of the bread and cup of the Holy Communion.  So it would be until he comes again.

Have you ever wondered what it was the Lord said to the disciples as he taught them on the Road to Emmaus about what the Scriptures said of his death, burial, and resurrection?  We know that the disciples spoke of how when he told these things they said of the experience to one another, “Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?”  That is what the Church ought to be praying takes place when our Lord calls us to worship him.  For as he has appointed ministers to proclaim the Scriptures and present the holy sacraments or ordinances, it is for the purpose that our Lord shall stand in our presence, speak through the minister in the proclamation of the Scriptures and come to life in the sacraments so that we who gather in the Lord’s presence wherever two or three might come together might find that he is in our midst proclaiming himself to us in the Scriptures and the sacraments.

I will conclude this writing with a few Psalms which Jesus might have spoken of on the road to Emmaus so that his disciples would understand how the Scriptures had spoken of his sufferings in death and burial and his glory of his resurrection.

Of his death on the cross he may have pointed to a Psalm he referenced even on the cross.  Psalm 22 begins with the famous words he spoke on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  It then gives this description surely brought to fulfillment in Christ’s death on the cross.  The Psalm says, “They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.  I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels.  My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.  For dogs have encompassed me: the assembly of the wicked has enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.  I may tell all my bones:  they look and stare upon me.  They part my garments among them, and cast lots for my vestments.”  (Psalm 22:13-18)  Yet the end of the Psalm looks forward to when this same one would declare God’s faithfulness to the brethren in the midst of the congregation.  The ends of the world would remember and turn unto the Lord, for the kingdom is the Lord’s, the meek would eat and be satisfied and a seed would serve him and declare his righteousness. (Read Psalm 22:22-31 for context and exact wording.)

Jesus would not only suffer death on the cross but would be buried in the tomb, in the pit and would not arise until day 3 of the ordeal.  If it seems confusing to readers that Jesus was crucified on Friday and rose on the third day, being Sunday; then the confusion rises from the different ways we count days in English as compared to the manner of the Hebrews.  In the creation account the world was created in six days.  There was day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, and day 6; followed by the Lord resting from his work of creation on day 7.  In the passion and resurrection the same sort of counting is done.  On day 1 Christ is crucified.  On day 2 Christ is in the tomb.  On day 3 Christ rises from the dead.

Jesus towards the end of his ordeal on the cross, just before his last breath is expired commends his spirit to the Lord.  Perhaps his death and his committing of his soul into the hands of his Father can be seen in the familiar words of the 23^rd Psalm.  Our Lord looked to experience the grave in the hope of his restoration.  “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies: thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  (Psalm 23:3-6)  In John’s account of the woman who anointed Jesus feet with the expensive ointment, Jesus described her act as an anointment unto the day of his burial. (John 12:1-7)  That was six days before his Passover crucifixion.  He commits his soul to the Lord with enemies surrounding him, seeing beyond the grief of his suffering that the Lord prepares a table for him, anoints his head with oil, and that beyond his suffering is his resurrection and exaltation.  Still even in hope there is real suffering in the death on the cross.

We come to Holy Saturday – the day Jesus spends in the darkness of the tomb.  It is his Sabbath rest, a day where he experienced the pit and darkness, described by the ancient creed as if a descent into hell.  It was surely prefigured in the 88^th Psalm.  This Psalm surely described his prayer:  “O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee.  Let my prayer come before thee: incline thy ear unto my cry.  For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.  I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength: free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou remembers no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.  Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.  Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah. 
     Thou hast put away my acquaintance far from me: thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.  My eye mourneth by reason of affliction, Lord, I have called daily upon thee:  I have stretched out my hands unto thee.  Wilt thou show wonders to the dead?  Shall the dead arise and praise thee?  Selah.
     Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave or thy faithfulness in destruction?  Shall thy wonders be known in the dark and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
     But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent (come before) thee.”  (Psalm 88:1-13)

In all of Psalm 88 there is but one glimmer of hope.  The Psalmist describes an experience of a day in the pit but hopes for one slight moment that in the morning his prayer will prevent (prevent is literally a compounded Latin word joining “pre” meaning before with “vent” a form of the Latin verb “veni” meaning to come.  So after this one day in the pit where men are forgotten, the Psalmist looks towards the morning when his prayer shall ascend to the Lord.  So there would be for Christ one day in the pit and in the morning afterwards his prayer would ascend to the Lord and his body would arise from the pit.

If the 22^nd Psalm described Christ’s death on the cross, and the 23^rd Psalm along with the 88^th Psalm described his day in the pit awaiting his resurrection, then the 24^th Psalm has been described and associated with his resurrection.  This has especially been used to express the glory and joy of Christ’s resurrection in the Resurrection Day worship of the Eastern Orthodox churches.  I found attending an Eastern Orthodox celebration of Easter especially powerful.  Many Eastern Orthodox churches have thick doors where one enters.  On the night before Easter Sunday, near midnight the Eastern Orthodox Church gathers to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.  They come to greet the Lord in the middle of the night as Holy Saturday morphs into Easter Sunday.  The entire congregation meets outside of the church and proceeds behind the clergy towards the door of the church.  There is a recitation of the 24^th Psalm.  The 24^th Psalm declares:  “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.  He hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods.”(Psalm 24:1-2)  The church door is closed.  The congregation waits outside.  The clergy knock on the door loudly.  A voice from within the church building answers in reply, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?  And who shall stand in his holy place?” (Psalm 24:3)  This is emphasized as the clergy continues to knock.  The clergy proclaims “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the king of glory shall come in.”  (Psalm 24:7)  From within the church building a voice can be heard replying, “Who is this king of glory?”  (Psalm 24:8)  The reply is given “The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.  Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.”  (Psalm 24:8-9)  One last time the voice from within the church building is heard, “Who is this king of glory?”  (Psalm 24:10)  The reply from the congregation comes once more, “The Lord of hosts, he is the king of glory.”  (Psalm 24:10)  At last, it is now Easter Sunday, a new day has arrived.  He has risen.  He has risen indeed.  The doors are flung open, heaven receives its king of glory and those who have believed upon him enter behind him in the procession.  “The Lord of hosts, He is the king of glory.”  He has risen!!!  He has risen indeed!!! Alleluia!!!  We may now enter the gates.  Heaven’s gates have been opened to receive her king and all those in his holy procession.

Ah surely this is not a break from our consideration of the Christian’s self-identity but rather this is ultimately the source and destiny of our Christian self-identity.  This is the Apha and the Omega, the beginning and the final destination of our Christian self-identity.  We have been baptized into his death, burial, and resurrection; and we partake of his body and blood remembering his death until he comes again.  In his life, death, burial and resurrection; our lives have been hidden and in him they shall be revealed.  This is surely our Christian self-identity.  Amen.