The King Who Reigns Through Suffering

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Lord, give us eyes to see and ears to hear, that we may learn Your Word together as a family. We give You all praise and honor and glory, in Jesus’ holy Name. Amen.

Good afternoon, Encouragers.

When our Lord was taken down from the Cross, and before the stone was rolled away on Easter morning, what was happening?

That’s a question many Christians have, and it matters because the time between the Cross and the Resurrection is not empty time. It is not a pause in the story. It is part of Christ’s saving work.

First, Scripture tells us plainly that Jesus truly died and that he was truly buried. Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus took his body, wrapped it in linen with spices, and laid him in a new tomb in a garden.

This was not the appearance of death. It was not an illusory trick. Jesus died. He was buried. The tomb was real, and the burial was real. The chief priests even had the tomb secured and the stone sealed.

The reason that matters is because we are saved by a real atonement, not by a symbol only. As Hebrews says in the lesson today, “this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.”

The sacrifice was done. Nothing needed to be added. Nothing ever can be added. Good Friday is enough, because Christ offered himself once for all.

But then what?

His body rested in the tomb. The body that had been pierced, scourged, crowned with thorns, and nailed to the tree was laid in the grave.

He entered fully into our human condition, even to the grave itself. He sanctified the grave for his people by lying in it.

The tomb is no longer a place of defeat. In Christ, it becomes the place from which resurrection will come.

But what of his soul?

Here, the Church speaks carefully, and we should too. Our Lord said to the penitent thief, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” So, our Lord’s human soul did not cease to exist.

He truly entered death, but he entered it as the Holy One, and not as one conquered by it.

This is why the Apostles’ Creed says, “He descended into hell,” and why Article III of the Thirty-Nine Articles says, “As Christ died for us, and was buried, so also it is to be believed, that he went down into Hell.”

In the older language of the Creed and Articles, this means that Christ truly entered the state of the dead. He went where the dead go. He did not merely seem to die. He tasted death fully for us.

And Scripture gives us a glimpse, though not a full map. St. Peter says that Christ was “put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.”

St. Peter also says that “the gospel [was] preached also to them that are dead.”

We should not pretend those verses tell us more than they do. But they do tell us this much: even in death, Christ was not passive, helpless, or defeated. Even there, He was the victorious Christ.

So, between the Cross and the empty tomb, Jesus is not doing nothing. His body rests in the tomb. His soul is in the place of the departed.

His sacrifice stands complete. His victory is already in motion. The world sees silence. Heaven sees conquest.

That also helps us understand the strange stillness of Holy Saturday.

The Church waits because creation itself seems to hold its breath. The Lamb has been offered, just as Abraham said, “God will provide himself a lamb.”

The true sacrifice has been made. Now the old kingdom of sin, death, and the grave is being broken open from the inside by the Lord who entered death in order to destroy it.

And that means something for us today.

Some of us know what it is to live in between. In between grief and comfort. In between prayer and answer. In between burial and resurrection. In between the promise of God and the visible fulfillment of it.

Good Friday tells us that Christ is Lord. Not just of the bright places, but also of the dark ones. Not only of life, but of death. Not only of Sunday morning, but of the sealed tomb.

There is no place He cannot go. There is no depth into which He cannot descend. There is no prison He cannot enter. There is no grave from which He cannot raise his people.

So, what happens between the Cross and the stone being rolled away?

The Crucified One enters death itself in order to fill even that dreadful place with His lordship.

He rests in the tomb … He descends to the dead … He finishes what He came to do.

And because He does, the stone will not stay shut.

The Church is right to sing, even on this day,

“We glory in thy Cross, O Lord, and praise and glorify thy holy resurrection; for by virtue of the Cross joy hath come to the whole world.”

Good Friday is the price of Easter. And in Christ, even the grave yields.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.