For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried… (1 Corinthians 15:4).

Buried

Cut off from light and life and hope…

Well, not hope.

Beloved, I don’t know what Jesus experienced as he lay  in that borrowed tomb. Did he go into Hell to preach to the fallen, as Peter suggests? Did he break down the gates of Hell and free Adam and Eve, as the early creeds say? Did he preach to Noah’s generation, or to the fallen angels–and was that preaching an offer of salvation, or a declaration of victory?

Wiser folk than I ponder and debate that question.

And what of the disciples? Well, I think we can be on firmer ground there. They likely felt 

lost 

confused  

abandoned 

alone.

They had bet over three years of their lives on what now seemed a losing cause.

They had loved, and lost.

It is easy for us, sitting safely on the other side of the cross, to miss what the disciples must have felt. For us, the resurrection is literally a few words away. For them, life as they knew it was over.

Which, of course, was true–they just didn’t know how true

yet. 

Happy Wednesday, Beloved