He was Buried
Today is known as Holy Saturday. It stands between the cross and the resurrection. The cross is God’s ultimate identification with humanity, and the resurrection is the promise of the future. In the cross we find reconciliation, but in the resurrection we find victory. Today stands between those. This is where we live constantly. The battle has been fought and we are assured of a final, future victory, but it is not yet fully come. Today is a day to contemplate this in between period. We live in the in-between.
God in Christ so identified with us that, as the ancient creeds tell us “he descended into the realm of death.” This was not some fainting spell, this was not some temporary situation. This is not something to be explained away. When Jesus died, he truly died. Pilate did not take Joseph of Arimathea’s word for it, he conducted his own investigation. Jesus had really and truly died. So Joseph bought a linen cloth (Jesus’ own clothes having been gambled over by others), took the body down from the cross and placed him in a tomb. Watching over all of this again, were two Mary’s. They saw where he was laid, and they knew he was dead.
So today we sit in between. It doesn’t always seem like the final victory has been won. It feels like there is death around. The world is still not made right. We sit in between and must have faith for we know how the story ends/will end. But for now the story is not yet concluded, and we wait at the cusp of an as yet unfulfilled (yet somehow fully fulfilled) promise. Looking forward to the future, being affected by the past, sitting at the juxtaposition of the victory of the kingdom of this world and the greater victory of the Kingdom of God. This is where faith is made real and hope drives us forward. Sit and wait in the silence of the in between.
whytheology 