Why is Holy Saturday important, and what does it mean that Christ descended into Hell?
Tradition affirms that immediately after the death of Christ, he went down in triumph into the place where the souls of those justified under the Old Law were held. While called hell (hades in Greek, sheol in Hebrew), the Creed is actually referencing a place where souls were separated from the presence of God and not the hell of eternal damnation.
Scripture calls this place the Abraham's bosom (St. Luke 16:22). The place where faithful, covenanted people waited for the Messiah to open the gates of heaven to them. Among them included the Old Testament patriarchs as Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David and even our Lord’s foster Father St. Joseph. Christological discourses identify this as the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission.
St. John 5:25 teaches that "the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live". It would not be fair to those who lived before Jesus if they did nor have a chance to hear the Gospel and be saved. On Holy Saturday we remember that even the dead had the chance to hear and be saved.
The Collect
GRANT, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him; and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection: for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Easter Even Readings: (1 Saint Peter iii. 17; Saint Matthew xxvii. 57)
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