Sitting in the Tomb with Christ: Holy Saturday and Christian Death

Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash

Death is not a topic we enjoy talking about generally, even in the church. Yet it is an ever-present reality. Death ever lingers around us and plagues our news and social media feeds. Even now, images of death due to the war in Ukraine, the earthquakes in Syria and Turkey, and the tragic mass shooting in Nashville beset our news cycles. The presence of death often seems ubiquitous and feels overwhelming, and, unfortunately, the church often does not offer a helpful or hopeful response.

Over the past few centuries there has been a great void in the church’s teaching and preaching on death. Much of this is because the church has limited its own role in death, secluding it into a space of specialized care and acquiescing the treatment of death to hospitals and funeral parlors. As a consequence, death has been turned into a private matter rather than an ecclesial one. Whereas one’s whole life in the church once was perceived as preparation for death (as well as a communion with the dead), death now has become an object of specified pastoral care, frequently approached therapeutically. The resulting attitude toward death by those living is one of separation, ambiguity, and anxiety. 

One indicator of the church’s mishandling of death is the way contemporary funeral rites have shifted attention away from a Christological focus. While the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ may be alluded to in a generic, spiritual sense in funerals, the person of Jesus and the meaning of his death and resurrection are not the principal emphases of the rite. Without proper focus on Christ, the church ceases to see death as a tragedy, a punishment for sin, and an insult to God. Instead, it approaches death as a mere curiosity and nuisance to be dealt with. The rites of the funeral are thus tamed and programmed to make death as easy, painless, and unnoticeable as possible. Services for the dead become nothing more than expedited memorials and ceremonials that crown the life of the deceased with sentimental accolades. In the absence of any Christological focus on death, death is stripped of its meaning and, as a result, so is life.

One way for the church to combat such a secularized treatment of death is to rediscover the historic, Christological focus of the Christian funeral. To locate Christian funerals in a Christological context is to expose death as the enemy of God and the fruit of sin. Likewise, it reminds the whole church that death is both an insult to God and the ransom of sin for humanity’s rejection of life in God. In the funeral rite, the church is meant to come face-to-face with the reality that, as God’s primary enemy, death must be destroyed. The rite also urges the church to proclaim the defeat of sin and death through Christ’s trampling down death by his own death. When such Christological perspective is maintained through the funeral liturgy, Christ’s death is seen as a divine and radiant act of love. Rather than a mere memorial of a person’s life, the Christian funeral, therefore, becomes a joyous occasion of certitude declaring that those who have died in Christ are joined fully in union with him, both in his death and his resurrection.

The reading of Psalm 23 is a declaration of this union with Christ. A number of liturgical resources include the psalm as one of the scripture readings in the service. Even outside of the liturgy, the verses of Psalm 23 can be found stitched onto blankets, written in cards, or displayed on a screen or in a bulletin at a funeral. Its prominence makes sense. Psalm 23 is a very popular psalm. It is a beautiful prayer that points to the goodness of God. The psalm conveys a sense of peace, is filled with images of comfort, and offers a word of promised hope that God will take care of us. These characteristics make it easy to see why it is such a fitting psalm to turn to in the midst of death and to share with those who mourn.

As I have spent more and more time thinking about Psalm 23 in relation to Christian funerals, I have begun to see a more Christological rather than therapeutic reason for its use in funeral services. Certainly, placing the psalm within the context of death gives it new focus. What, then, might God want us to hear when this psalm is read at a funeral? How does it help us see death and life through a Christological lens? Before these questions can be answered, the broader framework of Christian life and death is needed. Therefore, let us start at the beginning, which, as Julie Andrews reminds us, is a very good place to start. 

Scripture tells us that in the beginning was the Word of God–the one who became flesh and dwelt among us–and through the Word all creation came into being. Without the Word nothing was made that has been made, because in him is life, and that life is the light of all humankind. We cannot know life except through him and we cannot have life without him. He is life. 

In the book of Genesis, we see how all of life came into being from one source–God. Life began in the garden of creation and God’s work of speaking life lasted for six evenings and six mornings. For six days, (Sunday through Friday), God spoke and breathed life into this world. For six days, God established a home for his creation and he filled that home with living things. For six days, the beauty of God was on display as he made goodness come alive through his Word. Ultimately, on the sixth day–Friday–God formed humanity, breathing into them the breath of life and finishing his work of creation. Then, on the seventh day–Saturday–he rested. 

Looking back on the Genesis creation account, a pattern emerges in God’s creative work: first, God creates a place; then he fills that place with life; finally, evening and morning mark the day as complete. On the seventh day, however, the pattern breaks. No new creation is called forth and no final declaration of evening or morning is made. Instead, God rests and establishes the Sabbath. It is as if God’s creative activity ceases on the seventh day. But perhaps that is not the case. Perhaps, even there with the Sabbath, God prepares a place for life to be called forth once again and for his creative work to be completed. 

As the book of Genesis continues, it moves from a focus on the essence of life to the essence of death through sin. The remainder of Scripture continues to reveal how, as humans, we are all sinners who fall short of God's glory and turn our attention away from God toward lesser things – things that do not give us true rest and cannot give us life. As sinners, we are all subject to death. However, in his goodness and love God does not leave us in that state of separation and desperation. He is a God of life, and everything he does and says is for the cause of life. So, we look to the Gospel as the testimony of Jesus Christ, who in the beginning was the Word of God, was with God, and who is God, took on flesh and dwelt on earth among us. He became human, a part of God’s beloved creation, full of grace and truth. He came to bring God’s goodness to a world that had turned toward evil and to give life to those who were walking in the way of death.

Ultimately, it was on a Friday–the same day of the week that God’s creation in the garden came to a finish; the same day of the week that God breathed his breath of life into a human man and made him live–that Jesus, the Word become flesh, hung on a cross, declared, “It is finished,” and breathed his last. He gave his final breath for the life of the world. As the sun went down to complete that Friday and usher in the next day–Saturday, the Sabbath–Jesus was laid in a tomb. There in the tomb, Jesus entered the Sabbath long ago prepared and rested from his work.

Even so, this is what we must remember: in the tomb Jesus was still the Word that was there at the beginning; Jesus was still the one through whom all things were created. This fact makes all the difference because, in his death, Jesus was still life. In Jesus Christ, life itself entered into death, and because death is the great enemy of God, by dying, Jesus the Word of Life conquered death. He fully inhabited the Sabbath so that in our death we might follow him. It was on that Holy Saturday following Good Friday that Christ descended into the most blessed Sabbath, a blessed rest into death. The Friday of Jesus’ death was not the end of the story and Saturday was not the final act in God’s plan. Finally, there was evening and there was morning on that Holy Sabbath day, which led to the dawning of a new day, another Sunday, a day of new creation. Just like the first creation, this new creation occurred in a garden – the garden of resurrection. It is in that garden we find our hope, because in that garden we find new life. It is in that garden we forever dwell in the presence of Christ. 

Certainly, Christ’s death on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday are foundational to Christian life and faith, but the identification of Christian death with Christ’s work on Holy Saturday cannot go ignored. Holy Saturday, the day between Friday and Sunday when Christ sits in the tomb, frames the entirety of Christian death. Every Christian funeral, therefore, is an analogy of Holy Saturday, from beginning to end. The two exist as one service in celebration of the entrance of the whole ecclesial community into the deathless death of Christ who descended into death to liberate humanity from bondage and corruption. The Christian funeral is meant to immerse the church in the reality that all Christian death is an entrance into Christ’s blessed Sabbath, a partaking in him and of his deathless life. To put it simply, the Christian funeral invites the church to sit with Christ in the tomb in death in order to rise with him to new life. The church gathers acknowledging the deceased has now entered into the fullness of her baptism. She has reached complete union with Christ, the one who has accepted her into his death so that she will be purified, healed, and freed of death itself. She has joined with Christ in a new, resurrected life, soaring now where Christ has led in both death and resurrection. And in her joining with Christ, she has joined with all others who have gone before her into that same Sabbath rest, eagerly awaiting the day when all will be together in the resurrection. This is the reality that she now enjoys. It is her promised rest in Christ, and it is our hope. 

Turning back to Psalm 23, it is easy to see how it speaks of God’s great care, even in death, even in the presence of enemies. Certainly, Psalm 23 is a fitting one to read in the context of death because it offers comfort, hope, promise, and assurance. However, an even deeper beauty is revealed in the psalm when viewing it through a Christological view of life and death. The psalm points not only to the assurance of God’s care in life, but also to the grand reality of full union with Christ in death. The psalm speaks about those who have died and are fully with Christ who cares for them in the presence of death – the great enemy of God – and it looks to the final resurrection. In essence, when the words of Psalm 23 are spoken at a funeral, they are not words that the gathered church in the service says; rather, they are words that the deceased person claims and proclaims in the fullest way possible. Put another way, Psalm 23 is the utterance on the lips of those who have gone before us, those who are at rest in the fullness of Christ. In light of Holy Saturday, I invite you to read the words of Psalm 23 anew, hearing them as the testimony of those who are sitting in the tomb with Christ – the one who has overcome death and who brings new, eternal life. 

Psalm 23 

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.

Jonathan A. Powers is the Associate Dean of the E. Stanley Jones School of Mission and Ministry and Assistant Professor of Worship Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY.