From death to life
'The gospel was proclaimed even
to the dead, so that … they might live in the spirit as God does.'
At the end of a performance of
‘The Castle of Perseverance’, a 15th century morality play ,which I saw many
years ago, the hosts of heaven rushed across the room shouting with joy, to
bring humanity back from hell in triumph.
Where is Jesus today in the
Good Friday and Easter Story?
The Apostles’ Creed says that
he descended to the lowest things.
1 Peter speaks tantalisingly about
Jesus, entering that place to preach to the ‘spirits in prison’. Scholars of course debate what this means.
But where is Jesus today in the
Story?
He is dead.
He has experienced the only
thing that is certain in our lives. He has ‘suffered in the flesh’; he is dead.
The writer, has used this idea
to encourage his hearers in the suffering that they faced. Now he uses it to take us on from the place
of death to the place of life, which tomorrow shall proclaim.
There, we are called to leave
behind what is deathly, to what is of the ‘lowest things’; to return to what is
life-giving, to what God always intended.
Today, let us reflect on what
is deathly in our lives, which Jesus took upon himself, to emerge tomorrow into
the dawn of a garden with an empty tomb.
Aujourd'hui
nous veillons sur un tombeau.
Jésus
est là, mort.
Il a
pénétré les ténèbres de nos vies, et il nous invite à les rejeter afin que nous
puissions, avec lui, sortir du tombeau dans la lumière de l'aube du jardin et
de tombeau vide.
John
Wilkinson
Christ Descending into Hell, Albrecht Dürer, 1471–1528
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