TOMB OF CHRIST

“In the mystery of Holy Saturday, the Son of God lies in the tomb. But his absence is not emptiness: it is expectation, a restrained fullness, a promise kept in the dark. It is the day of the great silence, in which the sky seems mute and the earth immobile, but it is precisely there that the deepest mystery of the Christian faith is fulfilled. It is a silence laden with meaning, like the womb of a mother who carries her unborn but living child.
     “Jesus’ body, taken down from the cross, is care fully wrapped as something precious, buried in a garden, inside a new tomb where no one had ever been laid: it is a threshold, not an end. Holy Saturday is also a day of rest. The Son too, after completing his work of salvation, now rests, not because he is tired, but because he has finished his work. Not because he has given up, but because he has loved to the very end, the seal on the completed task,. that what should have been done has truly been accomplished. It is a repose filled with the hidden presence of the Lord.
     “We struggle to stop and rest. We live as if life were never enough. We rush to produce, to prove ourselves, to keep up. But the Gospel teaches us that knowing how to stop is an act of trust that we must learn. Holy Saturday invites us to discover that life does not always depend on what we do, but also on how we let go of what we have been able to do. In the tomb, Jesus, the living Word of the Father, is silent. But it is precisely in that silence that new life begins to ferment — like a seed in the soil, like the darkness before dawn. God is also the Lord of waiting. Even pauses and emptiness can become the womb of resurrection.
     “Jesus, buried in the ground, is the meek face of a God who does not occupy the entire space. He is the God who lets things be done, who waits, who withdraws to leave us freedom. He is the God who trusts, even when everything seems to be over. And we, on that suspended Sabbath, learn that we do not have to be in a hurry to rise again; first we must stay and welcome the silence, let ourselves be embraced by limitation. At times we seek quick answers, immediate solutions. But God works in depth, in the slow time of trust. The Sabbath in the tomb thus becomes the womb from which the strength of an invincible light, that of Easter, can spring forth.
     “Dear friends, Christian hope is not born in noise, but in the silence of an expectation filled with love. It is not the daughter of euphoria, but trustful abandon. The Virgin Mary embodies this trust, this hope. When it seems to us that everything is at a standstill, that life is a blocked road, let us remember Holy Saturday. Even in the tomb, God is preparing the greatest surprise of all. And if we know how to welcome with gratitude what has been, we will discover that, precisely in smallness and silence, God loves to transfigure reality, making all things new with the fidelity of his love. True joy is born of indwelt expectation, of patient faith, of the hope that what has been lived in love will surely rise to eternal life.”

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Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
Today too, we will look at the mystery of Holy Saturday. It is the day of the Paschal Mystery in which everything seems immobile and silent, while in reality, an invisible action of salvation is being fulfilled: Christ descends into the realm of the dead to bring the news of the Resurrection to all those who were in darkness and in the shadow of death. 

This event, which the liturgy and tradition have handed down to us, represents the most profound and radical gesture of God’s love for humanity. In- deed, it is not enough to say or to believe that Je- sus died for us: it is necessary to recognize that the fidelity of his love sought us out where we our- selves were lost, where only the power of a light capable of penetrating the realm of darkness can reach. 

The underworld, in the biblical conception, is not so much a place as an existential condition: the condition in which life is depleted, and pain, loneliness, guilt and separation from God and others reign. Christ reaches us even in this abyss, crossing the gates of this realm of darkness. He en- ters, so to speak, in the very house of death, to empty it, to free its inhabitants, taking them by the hand one by one. It is the humility of a God who does not stop before our sins, who is not afraid when faced with the human being’s extreme rejec- tion. 

The apostle Peter, in the brief passage from his first Letter that we have just heard, tells us that Je- sus, made alive in the Holy Spirit, went to take the news of salvation even “to the spirits in prison” (1 Pt 3:19). It is one of the most moving images, which is expressed not in the canonical Gospels, but in an apocryphal text entitled the Gospel of Nicodemus. According to this tradition, the Son of God entered the deepest darkness to reach even the last of his brothers and sisters, to bring his light down there too. In this gesture there is all the strength and tenderness of the Paschal message: death is never the last word. 

Dear friends, this descent of Christ does not re- late only to the past, but touches the life of every one of us. The underworld is not only the condi- tion of the dead, but also of those who experience death as a result of evil and sin. It is also the daily hell of loneliness, shame, abandonment, and the struggle of life. Christ enters into all these dark re- alities to bear witness to the love of the Father. Not to judge, but to set free. Not to blame, but to save. He does so quietly, on tiptoe, like one who enters a hospital room to offer comfort and help. 

The Fathers of the Church, in pages of extraor- dinary beauty, described this moment as a meet- ing: that between Christ and Adam. An encounter that is the symbol of all the possible encounters between God and man. The Lord descends where 

man has hidden out of fear, and calls him by name, takes him by the hand, raises him up, and brings him back to the light. He does so with full authority, but also with infinite gentleness, like a father with his son who fears that he is no longer loved. 

In the eastern icons of the Resurrection, Christ is depicted breaking down the doors of the under- world, stretching out his arms and grasping Adam and Eve by the wrists. He does not save only him- self; he does not return to life alone, but carries all of humanity with him. This is the true glory of the Risen One: it is the power of love, it is the solidar- ity of a God who does not want to save himself without us, but only with us. A God who does not rise except by embracing our miseries and lifting us up towards a new life. 

Holy Saturday, then, is the day in which heaven visits earth most deeply. It is the time in which every corner of human history is touched by the light of Easter. And if Christ was able to descend all the way there, nothing can be excluded from his redemption. Not even our nights, not even our oldest faults, not even our broken bonds. There is no past so ruined, no history so compromised that it cannot be touched by mercy. 

Dear brothers and sisters, for God, to descend is not a defeat, but the fulfilment of his love. It is not a failure, but the way by which he shows that no place is too far away, no heart is too closed, no tomb too tightly sealed for his love. This consoles us, this sustains us. And if at times we seem to have hit rock bottom, let us remember: that is the place from which God is able to begin a new cre- ation — a creation made of people lifted up, hearts forgiven, tears dried. Holy Saturday is the silent embrace with which Christ presents all creation to the Father to restore it to his plan of salvation.