Not surprisingly, the Resurrection of Christ is a principal subject of Christian art. In the Churches of the West, both Catholic and Reformed, both paintings and statues tend to depict the Risen Christ emerging triumphant from the tomb, perhaps with the soldiers sleeping on either side of the rolled back stone.
In the Eastern Church, however, the artistic tradition is different. The illustration on the cover of your service booklet shows a typical Eastern Orthodox icon of the Resurrection or Anastasis.
Standing astride a great set of fallen gates – which have landed in the figure of a cross – with the nail-prints visible in his hands and feet, Christ reaches down to grasp the hand of a man rising from a tomb. The man is Adam, our first parent. Beside him is Eve. Behind her, the figure with the shepherd’s crook is likely King David. To the left, stand John the Baptist and one of the kings of Israel, probably Solomon.
This strange image symbolically depicts what happened between our Lord’s death on the cross on Good Friday, and his rising from the tomb on Easter Sunday: namely, his descent into hell. The Apostles’ Creed states that after Jesus died and was buried, “he descended into hell, and on the third day he rose again.” Yet often during Holy Week it’s possible to go straight from the death and burial on Friday afternoon to the Resurrection on Sunday morning, without pausing to consider anything in between.
Over the years, people have occasionally asked me the same question about the Great Vigil of Easter: why are you celebrating Easter when it’s not yet Easter Sunday? Part of the answer is that on Easter Sunday we celebrate the resurrection appearances to the women and the disciples; while during the Great Vigil we instead on the resurrection itself: the deep mystery of what happens in the dark solitude of Christ’s tomb before dawn. So, on this most holy night, it seems appropriate to say a few words about Christ’s harrowing of hell.
The Bible briefly mentions this descent into hell in several places. Perhaps the best-known reference occurs in the First Letter of Peter. The apostle writes that Jesus was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison” (3:18-19). A bit later, he adds: “For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God” (4:6).
Paul writes in his Letter to the Ephesians, that Christ “descended into the lower parts of the earth,” and then later “ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things” (4:9-10).
In the Acts of the Apostles, the apostle Peter, in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, quotes Psalm 16, which says, “You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption.” Peter then says that in the psalm David “foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption” (2:31). These words suggest that Christ’s soul went to the place called Hades, but was not abandoned there, while his body remained incorrupt in the tomb.
One final hint is that in the many places where the New Testament writers speak of Christ being raised from the dead, the phrase “from the dead” in the original Greek means not “from the state of death,” but rather, literally, “from among the dead ones.”
The Church’s traditional understanding is that when Jesus died and his body was placed in the tomb, his soul left his body and descended into the place known in Hebrew as Sheol, and in Greek as Hades: not the hell of eternal damnation and punishment that awaits the unrepentant after the Last Judgment, but rather that shadowy realm where the spirits of the dead were awaiting the coming of the Redeemer.
Here, rather than becoming a prisoner himself, Christ trampled down the gates, crushed the power of the devil, preached the Gospel, and set free the souls of the dead. Finally, his soul ascended and rejoined his body, which was lying incorrupt in the tomb awaiting resurrection.
This doctrine of Christ’s descent into hell points to at least three truths of importance.
First, Jesus truly experienced death. From his conception, he went through all the stages of human existence, both on this side of the grave and beyond. And this means that he’s present for us in every stage of our life and death. Even as we go down into the grave, he’s already there waiting for us. Not even death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Second, by descending into hell, Christ has made his presence known in every part of creation, from the highest heaven to the lowest depths of the earth. In particular, by preaching the Gospel to those who had died before him, he shows that his offer of salvation extends to all people in all times and in all places.
And third, by ascending from hell after descending there, he accomplishes his victory over death and the grave: a victory which will be made manifest when he appears to the women and the disciples on Easter Sunday; and a victory in which we share by being baptized into his Body, the Church.
Tomorrow morning we shall celebrate the discovery of the empty tomb and the appearances of the Risen Lord to his followers. But this evening, we rejoice, give thanks, and celebrate -- for in the words of the Exsultet: “The night is come, wherein the bonds of death were loosed, and Christ harrowing hell rose again in triumph.”
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