Easter Saturday in the Tomb

 

Brian Kershisnik

Two more Stations 

-Malcolm Guite

XIII Jesus’ body is taken down from the cross

His spirit and his life he breathes in all

Now on this cross his body breathes no more

Here at the centre everything is still

Spent, and emptied, opened to the core.

A quiet taking down, a prising loose

A cross-beam lowered like a weighing scale

Unmaking of each thing that had its use

A long withdrawing of each bloodied nail,

This is ground zero, emptiness and space

With nothing left to say or think or do

But look unflinching on the sacred face

That cannot move or change or look at you.

Yet in that prising loose and letting be

He has unfastened you and set you free.

 

XIV Jesus is laid in the tomb

Here at the centre everything is still

Before the stir and movement of our grief

Which bears it’s pain with rhythm, ritual,

Beautiful useless gestures of relief.

So they anoint the skin that cannot feel

Soothing his ruined flesh with tender care,

Kissing the wounds they know they cannot heal,

With incense scenting only empty air.

He blesses every love that weeps and grieves

And makes our grief the pangs of a new birth.

The love that’s poured in silence at old graves

Renewing flowers, tending the bare earth,

Is never lost. In him all love is found

And sown with him, a seed in the rich ground.

Chora Church, Istanbul

Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell

Denise Levertov - 1923-1997

Down through the tomb's inward arch

He has shouldered out into Limbo
to gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber:
the merciful dead, the prophets,
the innocents just His own age and those
unnumbered others waiting here
unaware, in an endless void He is ending
now, stooping to tug at their hands,
to pull them from their sarcophagi,
dazzled, almost unwilling. Didmas,
neighbor in death, Golgotha dust
still streaked on the dried sweat of his body
no one had washed and anointed, is here,
for sequence is not known in Limbo;
the promise, given from cross to cross
at noon, arches beyond sunset and dawn.
All these He will swiftly lead
to the Paradise road: they are safe.
That done, there must take place that struggle
no human presumes to picture:
living, dying, descending to rescue the just
from shadow, were lesser travails
than this: to break
through earth and stone of the faithless world
back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained
stifling shroud; to break from them
back into breath and heartbeat, and walk
the world again, closed into days and weeks again,
wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit
streaming through every cell of flesh
so that if mortal sight could bear
to perceive it, it would be seen
His mortal flesh was lit from within, now,
and aching for home. He must return,
first, in Divine patience, and know
hunger again, and give
to humble friends the joy
of giving Him food—fish and a honeycomb.

Ivanka Demchuk