Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday

He Descended to the Dead
(this is a re-posting of my sermon from 2014)

Every morning at Matins, when we pray the Apostle's Creed, we pray the phrase, “He descended to the dead” as in “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead.” And for such a bold but unexplained statement I find the way our Eastern Christian brothers and sisters understand theology a much more comfortable way to approach such a mystery. For the Orthodox, theology is, well, an art form. It is as much about icons, poetry, hymnody, liturgy and prayer, as it is about intellect and study. It's not that they don't engage in lots of study, they certainly do. But that's not the only thing they do to seek Christ, as we might say in our Benedictine tradition. And make no mistake, theology for the Orthodox is not so much an academic pursuit, but rather the very seeking of Christ.

Now many people have told me over the years that Holy Saturday is, for them, a day of emptiness. A few will say, a day of waiting or anticipation, but most of those who have spoken to me about it say that they experience Holy Saturday as a day that is empty. Akin, perhaps, to the day after a funeral of a loved one. And while I am not going to tell you how or what to feel today, I would like to suggest that there is another approach to Holy Saturday, an approach that is artful, prayerful, even mystical. But one that I think is available to all of us.

Within the Eastern tradition there are many approaches to the descent of Christ to the dead, or into hell as it is often termed. But it is the approach that Cyril of Alexandria takes, that most appeals to me. Cyril takes the view that Christ, after his death, descended to hell to preach to all those who were present there. And in so doing, as he says in his Paschal Homilies,Christ “destroyed hell and opened the impassable gates for the departed spirits. He left the devil there abandoned and lonely.”

Now pre-Christian hell was conceived  not as we sometimes think about it as a place where unrepentant sinners go. Rather, it was a place for the dead. For anyone who has died. In their thinking, the Fathers of the Church were divided on what the spiritual consequences of being dead before the time of Christ were, but it is clear for them that all humanity descended to this nether world of captivity.

Now let's just take that it in for a moment. Christ, having just been murdered in a gruesome way, continues to experience what all humanity experiences by descending to the dead. He descended to hell to preach to the dead. Christ's plan for salvation is not only for those who were living during his earthly life or for those who would come in the future. No, Christ's plan for salvation is for all of humanity for all time. That includes, according to Cyril, not only the Righteous Jews, but also all pagans. Those two groups, for him, represented all of humanity at the time of Christ.

If we extrapolate out the modern understanding of what the totality of humanity consists of, that means that Christ was preaching to people who had been dead, in some cases, for millions of years. And the theological point that I think is important here is that Christ's plan for salvation is for all the living, all the dead, all those yet to be born. And Christ will stop at nothing to preach, reach, touch, save, love all of us. All of humanity. Every member of every religion, every race, every culture, every language group. Every captive. 

The Russian Orthodox monk and theologian Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, says that “Clearly, Cyril perceived the victory of Christ over hell and death as complete and definitive. According to Cyril, hell loses authority both over those who were in its power and those who are to become its prey in the future. Thus, the descent into Hades, a single and unique action, is perceived as a timeless event. The raised body of Christ becomes the guarantee of universal salvation, the beginning of leading human nature to ultimate deification.”

What humanity experiences on Holy Saturday is something outside ofchronos, chronological human time, and is better understood as being experienced in kairos, that is, a season for God to act in a time that humanity may not fully grasp. That experience of Holy Saturday is nothing less than the emptying of hell because Christ desires for humanity to turn from worshiping death toward worshiping Him, the very fountain of life.

However, though Christ has led captivity captive and brought salvation even to the nether world, the lure of death and hell are powerful. Even though Christ has emptied hell, he still searches among the dead, the lost, because so often we human beings seem to have some kind of proclivity to choose death rather than life, to make our own hells on earth. Just think about the last hundred years and the way in which humanity has created its own hell by continuing to turn from worshiping God in order to worship death: Death in the form of mustard gas, concentration camps, killing fields, lynch mobs, napalm, drones, nuclear weapons.

From the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in 1914, to the latest drone attack that occurred in Yemen this morning, humanity has chosen, time and again, in an unprecedented way over these last hundred years, to worship death and to create our own hells on earth, even though Christ left the devil “abandoned and lonely”. It has been a century of darkness and death.

This proclivity for darkness and death is almost beyond the explainable, yet even now, Christ will never give up on us. Just as he searched the darkest corners of hell to save every member of the human family, Christ still searches for us even as we modern humans have embraced an unprecedented worship of death. And that embrace is sadly shared by all of us. For most of us in this church, that embrace is shared primarily through ambivalence or complacency. But that complacency allows the purveyors of death to rule our lives whether we want to admit that or not. 

And so my invitation to all of you this Holy Saturday is to listen for Christ's preaching in those areas of your life in which you might have died. Has your zeal for peace died within you? Has the virtue of love for the least brother or sister died within you? Has your greatest patience with prayer or service to the poor died within you? Listen my sisters and brothers with the ear of your heart and know that Christ preaches to that which may have died within you this day. Christ never gives up on you! Not on any of you!

And knowing that – believing that – will then give us the strength we need to accompany Christ into all the darkest places that we human beings have created on earth. Those places where we as a people have died: in the slums we have established in order to neglect the poor; in the camps we've filled with refugees we'd rather fence in than liberate; in the limousines of gun manufacturers who are laughing all the way to the bank as our children are slaughtered in their classrooms; in the factories of death that our government calls nuclear weapons laboratories.

Let us go to those places and preach like Christ to the dead. Let us announce this Holy Saturday, that a new and different century is about to begin - a Century of Light and Life. A century in which we preach, reach, touch, save, love all of humanity. Let us proclaim that Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. That he descended to the dead. That on the third day he rose again and that he ascended to heaven. From where, this Holy Saturday, he sends us forth to preach to the dead. Holy Saturday empty? I'd ask you to consider a different approach in your prayer today. AMEN.

Holy Name/New Year

Last week, for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we were given a great gift of remarkably beautiful weather. They were perfect early summer days - warm, but not hot, no humidity, bright sunshine and beautiful blue skies. I was grateful to God for this weather because being from the Northern Hemisphere I am one of those people who love cold and snowy holidays. So I thought to myself, if I am going to be in the Southern Hemisphere for Christmas, I am so grateful these days are perfect examples of summer wonderfulness!

Then came the 26th and the 27th and the 28th and on and on - right up until this morning. A storm came in from the Indian Ocean (which we are very close to) and the mountains that we live in tend to "catch" the storm and hold it. In fact, they seem to have held on to this storm for dear life. Because we are at the top of these mountains the monastery gets caught up in the clouds which is quite a something to behold. It is not so much that we are rained upon here, as we are rained among. I'm not sure how else to put it. You do feel rain from above but also from the sides - and  not because of wind, but just because we are actually  in a cloud. It even seemed to me to be coming up at me from the ground.And this went on all week.

Well a monk with a bit of a poetic heart cannot ignore living within a kind of "cloud of unknowing" for almost the entire Octave of Christmas without writing something about the experience. It lead me to look back at one of my favorite poets, the great Japanese master of Haiku, Matsuo Basho.

Basho (1644-1694) lived one of those fascinating lives: raised to be a Samurai, when he came of age he left that life to join a Buddhist monastery and, after having lived the monastic life for awhile, left it to follow his true calling, that of poetry. He ended up leading the golden era of Haiku in Japan which was a poetic phenomenon perhaps unseen in any time before or since.

Basho traveled around Japan, gathering disciples while writing poetry and about poetry.  One of the many things which he wrote that has stuck with me  is: "Of all the men who have entered these mountains to live the reclusive life, most found solace in ancient poetry." And while I am not quite living a "reclusive life" Basho's comment from his "Travelogue of Weather-Beaten Bones" (n.b. all examples of Basho's writing in this blog entry are from "The Narrow Road to the Interior" translated by Sam Hamill and published by Shambhala Classics) seemed to hit home during my great immersion into these mountains and the clouds of the Indian Ocean.

In the same travelogue (Basho wrote several), the master writes: "I crossed Hakone Barrier in the rain, clouds hiding all the mountains:

Heavy falling mist -
Mount Fuji not visible,
but still intriguing.

Well, I love that. Basho seemed to be capturing from Japan in the 1690's my experience of South Africa in late 2014. Even when nothing is visible, when all is clouded with obscurity, and when the rain is falling not just on you, but even about and among you, the ancient poetry of our faith and of all those, like Basho, who sought after beauty, love and truth, is still intriguing and can still lead us to God who works in, it seems to me, mostly obscure ways. In fact, the more obscure it is the more intriguing it becomes.

This morning, for example, after nearly a week of living among the clouds, the sun began to emerge as we prayed Lauds for this feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. Here in Grahamstown, we pray the Camaldolese Office as at New Camaldoli in Big Sur, California (www.contemplation.com). When we prayed the antiphon preceding Psalm 150 we sang: "From Jesse's stock a flow'r has sprung, alleluia!" which, in its simplicity was very moving to me.That flower, of course, is Jesus.

If you spend time with the Gospel readings of the Eucharistic Liturgies for the three high points of Christmas-tide, we hear on Christmas Eve, Jesus being introduced to the shepherds, the poorest and lowliest members of society at that time; then on Holy Name, Jesus is introduced by name at his circumcision to the wider Jewish community; and then on Epiphany, we will hear Jesus introduced to the Gentile community as represented by the Wise Men.  That simple idea of  a flower springing forth from Jesse's stock,  results in the Holy Name of Jesus being introduced to all of humanity in a very specific order: the poorest first, the faithful of Israel next, and then the remainder of humanity.

In and of itself, the order in which the name of Jesus was introduced to the world should give us cause for contemplation. The praying of the Holy Name of Jesus ("Lord Jesus Christ/Have mercy on us" repeated continuously often using a prayer rope)

has been a guiding light for monastics and many others for a very long time. The repetition of the name of Jesus itself is contemplative while the request for mercy for a world so broken by war, crime, domestic violence, poverty, hunger, homelessness, disease and hopelessness is a prayer that seems self-evident.

As we were singing Psalm 150 at Lauds, my contemplating Basho once again this week led me back to some of  his poems for the new year. He composed many haiku about the new year and was, of course, referring to the traditional New Year celebrated in many Asian countries at the beginning of spring. The antiphon with its flower springing forth from Jesse's stock reminded me of one of Basho's haiku which sounds to me like a contemplation of eternal life, at least as Basho might have understood that concept.

Seeing the new year's
first flowers, I'll live seventy-
five years longer

Beautiful blue skies and perfect summer weather have returned to these holy mountains outside of Grahamstown and beautiful flowers abound all over the property, But whether we are being immersed in the clouds with rain all around us, or are bathing in the sunlight of the perfect day, the Holy Name of Jesus is held out to us - as it has been for two millenia now - as the name which brings our life to flower.

It is not clear whether Basho would have ever even heard the name of Jesus. There were Christian missionaries in Japan at the time of his life, but there is no record to my knowledge of Basho having encountered any. What is clear to me is that all truth seekers, those who, in the Benedictine tradition we sometimes call the "seekers of Christ" share with all seekers of every faith  three things: (1)a longing to know God, by whatever name we call God; (2) a desire for a even just a glimpse into eternity, by however we construe that concept; and (3) a need to deepen our understanding of how climbing up and down the mountains of our lives, whether within the clouds or within the sunshine, leads us on that journey toward knowing. This is a wisdom journey and one that can unite all of humanity if we allow ourselves to be so wise.

It seems to me that contemplating the Holy Name of Jesus is a wonderful way to begin this New Year. In the Holy Name of Jesus is the first flower of the new year.  In it we find some aspect of the truth of God's love for all of humanity and all of God's creation. In that name, lies the mystery of the God.

May peace be upon you, your loved ones, and all of humanity in this new year.