the Great Sabbath

Preachers are known to take naps around Easter. But there's an even great Sabbath. The Sabbath between Jesus cross and rising. Most Christians know one section of scripture better than any other: the Gospel accounts of the passion and the stories of the resurrection.

There's a great mystery in these accounts. What happened between the cross and Resurrection morning. The 4 canonical gospel writers offer great details about the events of Thursday night and the passover and Friday morning and the cross; but the intervening space before Easter Sunday morning is a a mystery left unresolved in the Gospels.

The early church confessed a belief that God was at work at some point between Jesus' cross and rising. The Apostle's Creed speak of Jesus' descending to the dead. Some writers have pointed to Peter's allusion in Acts 2:27 & 31 to Psalm 116:8 as an explanation

For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling... (NIV),

1 Peter 3:18-20 speaks of Jesus preaching to the dead through the Spirit. Its a moment of mystery and of Jesus as part of the Trinity was at work. Death could not hold him.