Today is Holy Saturday.

In some Christian faith traditions its also nicknamed "Great," "Joyous," "Black," "Glorious" or "Hallelujah" Saturday.

I have always tagged it "Silent Saturday."

It's a day of rest for Jesus. A sabbath on the Sabbath. From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, the ancient Jew rested to honor the fourth commandment of Moses (Exodus 20:8-11).

It had been a long, busy week (and last day) for Jesus.

Between his "last supper" and "it is finished" final breath, Jesus experienced 24 hours of sleepless agony. He stood before religious and pagan potentates, then hung in naked humiliation on a cross between to thieves. Soldiers mocked. His mother and a few women wept.

John the disciple--a son of thunder--watched in silence.
Everyone else deserted Jesus.

Silence.

For three hours on the cross, from noon to 3 p.m. there was darkness. Silence.

As the final paschal lambs were slaughtered on temple stone, the Lamb of God was sacrificed upon Golgotha's timber. SILENCE.

Even in heaven God turned away...while angels no doubt leaned in to watch in stunned horror. SILENCE.

In his final hours, Jesus spoke seven times. He forgave his crucifiers (Luke 23:34), saved a thief (Luke 23:43), and entrusted his mother to John (John 19:26-27). In his final breaths, Jesus broke the silence with four final loud prophetic statements: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34, Psalm 22:2). "I thirst" (John 19:28, Psalm 22:15)"It is finished" (John 19:30). "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:45; Psalm 31:5).

Then Jesus was SILENT.

Dead.

In the next three hours, Jesus' body was removed from the cross and hastily buried in a borrowed tomb. It's a tomb Jesus couldn't afford. He lived as a pauper and left penniless.

If it wasn't for Joseph of Arimathea, a rich, "prominent member" of the Sanhedrin (Mark 15:43), Jesus' body would've been burned, like his two thieving companions, in the fiery garbage dump outside Jerusalem.

This trash inferno was named  "Gehenna."

Did you catch it?

Without Joseph's intervention of Grace, Jesus' body would've been thrown in a fiery pit, his flesh burned in the "gehenna" (renamed as "hell" in many translations [Matthew 5:30; 18:8]).

Jesus in Hell. Forever cremated in the incinerator. Nothing left but ash. It's an unbearable idea. Thank God for rich friends.
But don't let that idea (Jesus in hell) get away.

Holy Saturday is also known as the "Harrowing of Hell." It's the day, according to ancient Christian tradition, that Jesus descended into Hell to preach salvation to the righteous dead (I Peter 3:19-20, Ephesians 4:7-10).

It's a doctrine taught by early church fathers like Melito of Sardis (c. 180 AD), Irenaeus (c. 180 AD) and Origen (c. 225 AD). It's in the Apostle's Creed"--the earliest creedal statement of the Church.

Think about it. Jesus' saved his loudest words for last...when He invoked a raucous earthquake and booming tear of the temple veil. And, if it wasn't for a vocal, rich man (pleading with Pilate for Jesus' body (John 19:38), Jesus would've been silently cremated.

You can't keep a God-Man down. So maybe Jesus did find His Voice after he died. Maybe he did raise a little hell. We know he doesn't camp in Hades though.

He told the repentant thief on the cross that he'd be with him "in paradise (Luke 23:43)." If Jesus detoured to Hades it's just a pit stop. Paradise is found in only two other places in the New Testament (2 Corinthians 12:4, Revelation 2:4) and was the place where God dwells. Jesus is headed home for the weekend.

And I suspect that heavenly homecoming was far from silent.

So, maybe on this day long ago Jesus wasn't resting as much as he was revealing and reveling. He partied with the angels and gave a newbie (the thief on the cross) a tour around heaven. The Passover festival was over but the heavenly festivities were just beginning.

Holy Saturday is hardly SILENT Saturday.

I was wrong to believe it. But Sunday is still to come. That's when things get really loud.

You ain't heard nothing yet

If you can believe it.