By Hannah Bowman
Holy Saturday liturgically commemorates Jesus’s descent into hell, or descent to the dead: an ambiguously interpreted tradition that found its way from...
Jesus’ coming in Advent is not only his coming as an infant in Bethlehem, nor only his coming as our judge at the end of time. It is also his coming to the depths of death and judgment: his presence in hell which grants it its truest, realest existence while at the same time undoing its sting with infinite mercy. Jesus’ presence in hell is the paradoxical symbol of justice that promises us the fullness of mercy and the fullness of judgment of God.
The idea that a mortal being could give itself as the immortal Word is a contradiction that would seem necessarily to burst open and destroy human existence.
