Journeying with Jesus — The Last Week (ch.7)
Mark 15:42-16:1
6th Sunday in Lent, March 24, 2024
Rev. Dr. Ritva H. Williams
Today as we observe Palm Sunday and the Sunday of the Passion, we also commemorate Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador who was murdered pretty much for saying and doing the things Jesus said and did.
20th century El Salvadoran society was marked by extreme disparities between the rich and the poor. A small, powerful group of wealthy families backed by the military controlled the political, economic and religious institutions, while the vast majority of people lived at bare subsistence levels and were subject to violence at the hands agents of powerful elites. Churches and church workers who worked with the poor and advocated for them were targeted by para-military death squads. A Jesuit priest and friend of Romero’s was assassinated within a month after he became archbishop in 1977. The government controlled press remained silent as officials refused to investigate. In weekly radio broadcasts, Romero revealed the truth about how priests and nuns were being maliciously defamed, attacked, arrested, tortured, and murdered, how Christian schools were being attacked and bombed. Romero was shot to death while celebrating mass on the evening of March 24, 1980. To date no one has been prosecuted for the assassination of Archbishop Romero or confessed it to the police, although the gunman was finally identified in 2000, and the El Salvadoran government issued a formal state apology in 2010.
Death squads continued targeting church leaders throughout the 1980’s. Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gomez was arrested and tortured in 1983. In 1989 six Jesuit priests and their housekeepers were murdered, Bishop Gomez was forced into exile, and Canadian Lutheran pastor-missionary Brian Rude was arrested. I was privileged to hear Pastor Rude’s story at a synod assembly. Bishop Gomez and Rude were able to return to El Salvador in the 1990’s to continue working with the poor of El Salvador.
Archbishop Romero’s preached a gospel that affirmed the life and dignity of all people, especially the most vulnerable, and opposed all forms of violence. Here’s a sample of the gospel he preached:
“The church … believes that in each person is the Creator’s image and that everyone who tramples it offends God. As holy defender of God’s rights and of [God’s] images, the church must cry out … even though they be unbelievers. They suffer as God’s images. There is no dichotomy between [a human being] and God’s image. Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God’s image … (The Violence of Love, from www.albertus.edu)
To which we can only say: Amen. Amen.
This morning, we enter Holy Week with two gospel readings — Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Sunday and Jesus’ burial on Friday of the last week of his earthly life. Our focus is on the second reading, where we meet Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the Council. He was devout Pharisee, living in hope of God’s kingdom, who did not agree with the plot against Jesus (Luke 23:50-56). Joseph boldly goes to Pilate and asks for the body of Jesus. Pilate, first confirms that Jesus has been dead for some time, before granting Joseph’s request. This was quite unusual. The bodies of the crucified were normally left on display to be devoured by carrion birds and scavengers. The whole process of crucifixion was intended to publicly shame, humiliate, degrade, and dehumanize. Victims were stripped of their clothing which was confiscated. Naked, they were tortured and flogged, losing control of bodily functions. Then their hands, arms and feet were tied and nailed to the cross where they died a slow and painful death as bystanders jeered at them. (Malina & Rohrbaugh, The Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 346-7).
But Jesus had friends in high places who decided enough was enough, and stepped in to ensure that his body was not further desecrated. Joseph arranges for an honorable, albeit hasty, burial in his own tomb. Jesus’ faithful female followers, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses, witness where his body is laid. End of the chapter.
The next chapter begins “when the sabbath was over” in the early hours of Sunday morning. This creates a strange gap in Mark’s Gospel, to borrow some lines from Borg and Crossan:
After detailing every day from Sunday through Friday of Holy Week, Mark says nothing at all about the Sabbath. After detailing the hours of Friday in three-hour intervals corresponding to the legionary watch period, Mark says nothing about Saturday (p. 165).
If we want to discover what happened on Holy Saturday, we must look to other sources.
Matthew’s gospel tells us that when Jesus was a crucified, there was an earthquake, tombs opened, and the bodies of saints who had fallen asleep were raised. These saints came out their tombs and appeared to many after Jesus’ resurrection. (27:51-53). First clue: Jesus’ resurrection launches a resurrection of dead saints on Friday evening, which in Jewish timekeeping is actually the beginning of the sabbath — Holy Saturday. These risen saints follow Jesus by showing themselves on Easter morning.
1 Peter, a circular letter from Rome to the churches of Asia Minor, adds a second clue as to what Christ was doing on Holy Saturday. 3:19 — “Christ was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which he also went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison” and 4:6 —“the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.”
The Gospel of Peter, of which only a tiny fragment has survived, describes what the soldiers at the tomb saw the “during the night in which the Lord’s day dawned” — Holy Saturday. Two angels came down from the heaven, made the stone roll away, and went inside. After a while they came out, supporting a person whose head reached above the heavens, followed by a cross. A voice from heaven cried out, “Have you proclaimed liberty to them that sleep?” The cross answered, “Yes.” Borg and Crossan speculate that the talking cross in this story is meant to symbolize and represent the risen saints liberated from Hades by Christ (p. 177).
These are among the cryptic clues that led the church to proclaim that Christ descended to the dead as we confess still to this day in the Apostles’ Creed. The Greek word is literally “Hades” as in the afterlife place of nonexistence, not to be confused with the medieval invention of Hell as a place of eternal punishment.
The good news of Holy Saturday is that Christ has thrown down the gates of Hades/Hell and liberated all who were, are, or ever will be in bondage to death. as illustrated in the icon of the Anatastasis/Resurrection. That belief is immortalized in an early Christian hymn in which Christ proclaims:
I was not rejected although I was considered to be so, and I did not perish although they thought it of me.
Sheol saw me and was shattered, and Death ejected me and many with me.
I have been vinegar and bitterness to it, and I went down with it as far as the depth.
Then the feet and the head it released, because it was not able to endure my face.
And I made a congregation of living among the dead; and I spoke with them by loving lips;
in order that my word may not fail.
And those who had died ran toward me; and they cried out and said “Son of God, have pity on us.
And deal with us according to your kindness, and bring us out of the chains of darkness.
And open for us the door by which we may go forth to you,
for we perceive that our death does not approach you.
May we also be saved with you, because you are our Savior.”
Then I heard their voice, and placed their faith in my heart.
And I placed my name upon their head, because they are free and they are mine.
(Odes of Solomon 40:10-20, Borg and Cross, p. 179)
Christ’s actions on Holy Saturday lie behind Presiding Bishop Eaton’s quip that if Hell does exist, it is empty. Thanks be to God!
