Harrowing of Hades

Easter! On Sunday the celebrations were widespread and enthusiastic. But Easter isn’t simply a day, it’s a season, fifty days beginning with Easter Sunday and stretching until Pentecost. We are in Eastertide longer than we were in Lent. We are in “feast mode” longer than we were fasting.

That says something to me about God’s abundance. It’s always more than we need, always more than we can even imagine. Yes, even in this season of Eastertide there are still wars, there is still corruption and injustice and terror and abuse. Cynics might say that Christ’s resurrection hasn’t fixed anything, but as someone who has gone through my own hard times (as we all do at some point in life) Easter says to me that I am never left alone, and that the worst thing is never the last thing.

My favorite icon captures this so well. Known as “The Harrowing of Hades”, it shows the risen Christ standing on the gates of Hell, pulling Adam and Eve up with him. Satan is bound and in the darkness beneath Jesus, along with the keys of death and hell. I once heard Elaine Heath speak to the way many churches have modified the Apostle’s Creed to eliminate the line that says “he descended into hell.” She said we need to remember that Jesus will go into Hell to save us. There is no where he will not go to be with us, to restore us to life. The Harrowing of Hades icon always reminds me of that truth. I always display it during Eastertide.

At the Easter Sunrise service at my church, Murphy First UMC, we shared in an Easter Proclamation from the Easter sermon of John Chrysostom, from around 400 AD. It included these words that, as they were proclaimed on Sunday, made me think of the image from the icon:

He destroyed Hell when He descended into it.

He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh…

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.

It was in an uproar because it is mocked.

It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.

It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.

It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

If you are walking in darkness, the Easter message tells us that evil, injustice, oppression, and grief do not get the last word. We are not alone in our dark seasons. Jesus, who descended into Hell, comes to us in our own versions of Hell, and will not let go of us ever, and will bring us out with him. If you need that hope, I encourage you to get your own Harrowing of Hades icon to remind yourself of the lengths Christ goes for you.