Holy Saturday

It is finished!
Into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit.

Up above, the words were quiet,
Spoken by a dying man into the void of a world that did not understand.

But

Down below, the words brought,
for the first time,
hope.

It was finished?
No, it was about to begin.

The Lord of All was dead.
He had been laid in the grave,
The tomb,

And now,
The work was about to begin.

Saving men from sin was one thing,
Freeing them from the power of death is quite another.

So down he went,
To the abode of the righteous--
Paradise.

The souls in hell looked on the Savior--
Amazed.
This was the man that they had heard about--
Now down in the place of the dead with the rest of them.

I am the way, the truth, and the LIFE.

No man comes to the Father but by me!

The gates of hell opened.

Who would accept the call?

Those in Paradise, of course, rushed forth.

They had known him from the beginning,

And they freely took the offered hand.

Bowing before him, they accepted his gift--

Their freedom--

He had given them a Way

And were welcomed by Truth

As they went into the Light.

And those across the chasm?

Did any of them accept the offer of freedom

For the price of allegiance?

We are not told

But we can hope….

Up above,

The world waited without hope.

Down below,

The souls flooded out,

and up

Into the gates of Heaven,

And for the first time,

The created Son of God,

Viewed the Father once again.

There was one day--

An eternity--

To renew relationships,

Be congratulated on a job well done,

Be gratefully received by those who had not followed the fool,

And to look down

Into Hell,

And see the stunned, angry face of death.

Never again would he hold dominion.

The King of Life was now King of Death as well,

For months afterward (or was it centuries?),

Death would sit, stunned, saying,

"He just left! How did he Do that?

Even I can't do that!"

And so the righteous dead were raised first.

For the rest of the world,

Those here below,

They waited

One

Day

More.