Holy Saturday

Have no fears then. Now that the common Savior of all has died on our behalf, we who believe in Christ no longer die as men died in time past, in fulfillment of the threat of the law. That condemnation has come to an end; and now that, by the grace of the resurrection, corruption has been banished and done away, we are loosed from our mortal bodies in God's good time for each, so that we may obtain thereby a better resurrection. Like seeds cast into the earth, we do not perish in our dissolution, but like them shall rise again, death having been brought to nothing by the grace of the Savior. That is why blessed Paul, through whom we all have surety of the resurrection, says: "This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality; but when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?'"

(Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 21; language slightly updated)

No Kivengere quotes this year, nor yet the usual Petra video of He Came, He Saw, He Conquered, which should be required listening for anyone. (Since I only post once a year anymore, it seems, just scroll down.)

Rather: a reminder that in the tomb, God is still sovereign. Though dead, he works death backwards, and he unmakes death. If in death, how much more in life?

In A Brief History of Thought, Luc Ferry rightly describes death as anything in our lives that is irreversible, whether it be the biological termination of our lives or the holiday at the sea we can visit only in memory. But the gospel gainsays death entirely, and it proves it by the historical bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the grave.

Athanasius reminds us elsewhere that the resurrection secures eternal life for all—we are all immortal. But this is a sobering thought, for hell as well as heaven is full of immortals. As C. S. Lewis once wrote:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

It is a solemn day, but a day of joyful expectation. Can you imagine it? To arrive at the empty tomb?

Holy Saturday

What a discovery!  You mean this man who is hanging on the cross is a king?  The cross is his throne? The thorns his crown? This shattered body is a kingly body? A naked body, covered with the robes of a king?  Glory overcame the despair of this criminal.  And the king said, "Don't you wait for long.  Today, you and me are going to share paradise."

He was buried and he resurrected.  What does that do?  The death overcame the guilt and the sin and the separation. What does the resurrection do?  My goodness, it delivers!  The last enemy of mankind is death.  It makes men tremble; it makes clever men weep. It is the point of departure, the dead end of the road.  Jesus entered the realm of death: three days in battle down there. And in the grip with that terrible enemy of mankind, he killed death, disarmed it, opened the grave.

Jesus came out of the grave triumphant, glorious.  Do you think he came alone?  Not a bit!  He came with you!  The head came out, and so the limbs came with him.  You are there!  I know you say, "Bishop, I am not that type."  Jesus knows very well he died for that type! The kind of you, with all the things that make you tremble, with all the limitations of the human being.  Jesus took you when he rose from the dead, because when he died, he gripped you.

(Selections from Festo Kivengeri, in his sermon The Triumph of God's Glory)

Oral Traditions Prior to the Gospels

I'm not sure whether anyone has identified much in the way of oral traditions specifically regarding the sayings of Jesus that can be found in non-gospel literature, but I think it's probably a fruitful study.

While detouring a bit from Acts on Sunday, we read some in 1 Corinthians 13, the famous love chapter.  In it, Paul writes

2 [I]f I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

1 Corinthians is usually dated ca. AD 54, well before the gospel of Matthew (generally dated ca. 80–100), in which this famous saying of Jesus is recorded:

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

(Mt 17.20, cp Mt 21.21)

I would probably reject the hypothesis that Matthew's story somehow relies on the circulation of the letter of Paul to the Corinthians: the provenance of the letter and its distribution seem unlikely to me to have influenced the writing of the Matthew.

It seems rather more likely that the gospel narrative and Paul's almost off-hand reference are part of a broader oral tradition that undergirded the nascent Christian church.

Acts records another such instance, this time without a corresponding gospel passage, when Luke quotes Paul in his final address to the Ephesian church (probably somewhere around AD 60, maybe AD 61):

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

(Acts 20.35)

I think it would be an interesting study to look at these pregospel letters to try to piece together some other examples of oral testimony, and perhaps I'll take that on as a project this year.