Creed 20 He suffered and was buried

He confessed the good confession before Pontius Pilot What was the good confession? 1.A King not of this world 2.Came to witness for the Truth

The cross as the sacrifice and the prayer The prayer of the heart: few words, much feelings “He who offered Himself, as an acceptable sacrifice upon the Cross for the salvation of our race. His good Father smelled Him in the evening on Golgotha.” The hymn of the feast of the Cross and the Holy Week

The cross of Christ as the sacrifice of sin “Sweet aroma to the Lord” (Lev 1:9, 13, 17)

Why the Cross? Why did He choose to die on the cross? 1.It is the most painful 2.It is unique and long 3.Sign of shame and defaming by lifting a condemned up for all to see 4.Considered a curse in the Mosaic law (Gal 3:13) In the cross He continued to do things on our behalf, like fasting, baptism, obedience to the old law, etc. On the cross He suffers and dies on our behalf.

He suffered… Did He really suffer? How can God suffer? Psalm 22:14, 15: “My heart is like wax; it has melted within Me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws.”

Events of His burial 1.The body was bound in stripes of linen with the spices. 2.Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemas took permission from Pilot and they buried the body in a new tomb hewn in the rock. 3.A large stone was rolled against the door of the tomb. 4.The priests and Pharisees set guards and sealed the stone – proof of His resurrection.

Jesus Christ was buried “By the grace of God” our Lord tasted death “for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9). What does it mean to taste death? What does it mean that Christ tasted death, the “final enemy,” as St. Paul calls it? When people die, they do not cease to exist, but they begin a new journey. None of us can really know what it is like, because none of us have died, so it is difficult to understand what He went through as a human, let alone as the One who lives. It means that He experienced the condition of death: the separation of His soul from His body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time He was raised from the dead.

Jesus Christ was buried The tomb is the link; “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore” (Rev 1:18) “God (the Son) did not impede (obstruct, delay) death from separating His soul from His body according to the necessary order of nature but has reunited them to one another in the resurrection, so that He Himself might be, in His person, the meeting point for death and life, by arresting in Himself the decomposition of nature produced by death and so becoming the source of reunion for the separated parts.” St. Gregory of Nyssa

Jesus Christ was buried Christ’s death was a real death: it put an end to His earthly human existence, but He did not have a mortal corpse “He was cut off out of the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8) and “My flesh will dwell in hope. For You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let Your Holy One see corruption” (Acts 2:26-27; Psalm 16:9-10)

Jesus Christ was buried What does this mean for us? “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4; Col 2:12; Eph 5:26). The church insists on baptism by immersion as a full sign of dying to sin and the world and living a new life to God in Christ.

“He descended into Hades through the Cross” (St. Basil liturgy) What exactly is hell? Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “Hell” – Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek – because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God (Phil 2:10; Acts 2:24; Rev 1:18; Eph 4:9; Psalms 6:6, 88:11-13). The evil and the righteous

“He descended into Hades through the Cross” (St. Basil liturgy) The affirmation that Jesus was “raised from the dead” presupposes (takes as fact) that the Crucified One sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to His resurrection. He went to Hades, like all men who had died before Him, but as Savior and not as a prisoner

“He descended into Hades through the Cross” (St. Basil liturgy) Jesus “the Author of Life,” by dying, destroyed “him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and (delivered) all those who through fear of death were subject to life long bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15; Acts 3:15).

“He descended into Hades through the Cross” (St. Basil liturgy) Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and He has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began… He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, He has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him. He who is both their God and the Son of Eve… “I am your God, who for your sake have become your Son… I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in Hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.” Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

“He descended into Hades through the Cross” (St. Basil liturgy) The church celebration of this great Saturday Sabbath starts immediately after the 12 th hour on Great Friday by changing the tunes and the banners of the church. We start loudly singing in a procession the joyful “Kerielayson.” Christ suffering in the flesh is ended. The cup He received from the Father is drunk, our salvation is accomplished, and “it is finished.” When the service on Great Saturday starts the alter is opened, the burial wrapping is on the alter. The church keeps this night in vigil next to the tomb of Christ where His body lays but in the Spirit the church goes with Him to Hades to encounter the righteous souls who awaited His salvation. In the readings of the night the church reads the songs of salvation. After finishing the songs, the church opens the book of Revelation since the Lamb was slain and the scroll which was at the right hand of God, which no one could open now the slain Lamb can open it for us.