The Darkness, the Waters, and the Cross (A Good Friday Sermon for Holy Saturday)

Today's Holy Saturday, when we remember that Jesus lay in the grave for us and hallowed the grave for us. While Jesus underwent the second death (Rev. 21:8) for us on the Cross on Good Friday, willingly suffering the wrath of God in our place, and triumphing over it with a victorious cry of 'It is finished!', on Saturday He lay in the grip of the first death - physical death. Jesus was dead that day; His body in the tomb and His soul in glory (Luke 23:43). And through His death and burial for us, we have no need to fear the grave, for those in Christ will know the same thing as he - our bodies (still united to Christ) in the grave, our souls in glory with the Lord, waiting for the day when body and soul will be reunited at the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead.

Anyway, as it's Holy Saturday, here's a good hymn appropriate to the day from Martin Luther. And here's last night's Good Friday sermon on the darkness, the waters, and the Cross.