Holy Saturday: This makes me think...

Here's a portion of Pope Benedict's Homily from Easter Vigil, 2007 (emphasis mine):

Let us return once more to the night of Holy Saturday. In the Creed we say about Christ’s journey that he “descended into hell.” What happened then? Since we have no knowledge of the world of death, we can only imagine his triumph over death with the help of images which remain very inadequate. Yet, inadequate as they are, they can help us to understand something of the mystery. The liturgy applies to Jesus’ descent into the night of death the words of Psalm23[24]: “Lift up your heads, O gates; be lifted up, O ancient doors!” The gates of death are closed, no one can return from there. There is no key for those iron doors. But Christ has the key. His Cross opens wide the gates of death, the stern doors. They are barred no longer. His Cross, his radical love, is the key that opens them. The love of the One who, though God, became man in order to die – this love has the power to open those doors. This love is stronger than death. 

The Easter icons of the Oriental Church show how Christ enters the world of the dead. He is clothed with light, for God is light. “The night is bright as the day, the darkness is as light” (cf. Ps 138[139]12). 

Entering the world of the dead, Jesus bears the stigmata, the signs of his passion: his wounds, his suffering, have become power: they are love that conquers death. He meets Adam and all the men and women waiting in the night of death. As we look at them, we can hear an echo of the prayer of Jonah: “Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice” (Jn 2:2). In the incarnation, the Son of God became one with human beings – with Adam. But only at this moment, when he accomplishes the supreme act of love by descending into the night of death, does he bring the journey of the incarnation to its completion. By his death he now clasps the hand of Adam, of every man and woman who awaits him, and brings them to the light.

Holy Saturday is like the painful pause after the death of a person you love. There's a need to hold on and yet a need to let go.  I am really moved by Benedict's description of Jesus clasping the hand of Adam in the place of the dead... that Jesus goes there to meet Adam, and all those who await him.  Then he brings them to light.

It is because of this, that Catholics begin our Easter Vigil in the darkness... and Jesus meets us there and pulls us into the light.

And now... another thought or two about the Holy-Saturday-to-Easter-light from Chris Tomlin, a very popular Christian writer of worship music... (its not as deep a teaching as Benedict's, but it is much along those lines.)