To the Spirits in Prison

It is Easter, not Christmas, and yet the next Christmas for you — as perhaps the last one already was — will possibly feel like Holy Saturday.

Let me explain!

On Good Friday, He is crucified. On Easter Sunday, He rises. (Yes, „rises“ is the present tense of „has risen.“)

But what does He „do“ on Saturday?

Interestingly, the Gospels do not report what Jesus did on the „Saturday in between.“ Matthew 27:62–66 reports on the sealing of the tomb. And on how the high priests continued to revile the Crucified One even after the execution and even intrigued against Him and His disciples post-mortem. Luke 23:56 reports that the women around Jesus, by contrast, properly observed the Sabbath.

Two letters of the New Testament, however, explain it as part of an argument. On Saturday, Jesus preached, as Tertullian or Clement of Alexandria formulate it, in „Hades.“ That is: in the realm of the dead.

In the First Letter of Peter it says:

In the spirit he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, namely to those who were once disobedient when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which only a few, namely eight souls, found salvation through water.

– 1 Peter 3:18–20

But why did He do that? Why did He preach „to the spirits in prison“?

The Letter to the Ephesians explains:

Now that he ascended, what does it mean but that he also descended first into the lower regions of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, in order to fill all things.

– Ephesians 4:9–10

He preached in Hades — the Fathers debate to this day about its reach and effect — so that even those who lived and died before Him would at least have a chance. The Word (John 1:1) and the Truth (John 14:6), who descended, also descended into the lower regions, in order thus and then to „fill all things.“

Which brings us, only half light-footedly, to your next family gathering. Or to your next family celebration.

Some of us suffer from that disease of not being able to lie. At family celebrations we hear people parroting the lies that were told to them by propaganda and other authorities.

The lies that tickled their ears so nicely (2 Timothy 4:3–4).

In such a situation you might ask yourself why you should draw the wrath of the willfully blind upon yourself. A human, understandable question!

One answer could be: You preach in Hades to give the lost at least a chance.

And after you have become aware of this correct insight (and permission), be grateful immediately afterward.

Grateful for the chances (John 8:32) that were given to you in your personal Hades.