The Christ is dead; the corpse of the Son of God lies on a cold slab in a suffocating, lightless tomb.
Holy Saturday is a difficult day to keep holy. My parish marks it with morning prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours, but most churches don’t do anything, which is certainly appropriate; Jesus Christ is liturgically dead. And so I’ve taken to my own observances.
Last year, after the Good Friday communion liturgy, my wife and I watched The Passion of the Christ, and on Holy Saturday we kept things low-key while listening to Bach’s Matthäus-Passion and Johannes-Passion as well as Mozart’s and Verdi’s Requiems.
But life goes on. Our young kids (almost 5 and 3) can’t help but play, sometimes cooperating, sometimes protesting in shrill tones a grave injustice the other has perpetrated by encroaching on (say) a Thomas the Tank Engine track layout. My mother will host Easter dinner, and so we will prepare some food for that. And for many people, even those who will be in Easter Sunday services tomorrow, Holy Saturday is another Saturday filled with shopping, yardwork, fishing, and the like.
Holy Saturday started to hit me differently a few years ago. I suspect it had to do with three major events occurring within several months.
First, I turned 35, which meant my life was half over, as I’d count myself blessed to make it to seventy. I began to feel life was now downhill. Second, our son Hans was born, and as those of you who are parents know, having children entails epistemological paradigm shifts: we see the world differently. Third, just a few weeks after Hans’ birth, I buried my father. And so I came to the existential realization that life was short and moving ever faster and that we play for keeps.
Sensitive now to the fragility of human life and the grave responsibilities laid upon us by God and Nature, and newly alive to the joys and terrors of life in this beautiful and horrible world as a member of a glorious and murderous race, Holy Saturday punched me in the gut.
They killed him. They really did.
Many Christians in modernity, I think, have a conception of the crucifixion restricted to a legal version of penal substitutionary atonement. Our problem is guilt, for which God must punish us, but loving us and desiring to forgive us, God punishes Christ in our place.
True enough as far as it goes. But when compared to classical soteriologies, whether Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant, it doesn’t go very far. For it leaves the horror of the human condition outside of us, as this model concerns merely our legal status, and thus leaves no remedy for the wretched realities ruining us.
What about sin as a condition within us, in our very natures? What about the four traditional enemies of Sin, Death, Hell, and the Devil, those hypostasized forces which animate mortal and demonic violence against us, often from within us?
Sin, Death, Hell, and the Devil afflict us from within and without. Our problem isn’t only God’s posture of wrath towards us, which can seem far away, terrible as it is. Our problem is that we and the World are both fallen and afflicted, evil within, evil without, near us.
The cross isn’t just a component in the economy of our salvation, something God needed to do to Christ to acquit us. The cross also reveals the hatred of the human race towards God. They killed him: God comes into the World in Jesus Christ, and Jew and Gentile conspired to cooperate in killing God for reasons of convenience.
The World stands guilty of deicide.
And so on Holy Saturday, I feel generally sick to my stomach. The one man who could have helped us, we hammered to a cross. And that means two things: Deep down, I’m capable of murder, and I’m liable to be murdered. We mustn’t deceive ourselves about our capacity for sin and that of others.
Most people have a theologia gloriae, a theology of glory in which we bypass the cross as we affirm ourselves and affirm God for affirming us in a circle of moral therapeutic deist bilge. True theology, as Luther so rightly and so often stressed, is a theologia crucis, a theology of the cross in which God’s murderers are saved by God through the very instrument of His murder.
Our salvation cannot consist in self-improvement; our salvation consists in our own crucifixion.
God doesn’t affirm us; God saves us.
But not yet, not today. Tomorrow.
We killed Him.
Kyrie eleison.
[Editor’s note: This essay appeared originally on CWR on March 30, 2013.]
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
And yet the self-donating Christ was fully in charge, submitting willingly: “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:18).
Yours truly is unable to locate in “The Diary” of St. Faustina where Christ reveals of His total Passion: “If I could have suffered even more for you, I would have.”
Thanks! I was just going to post John 10:17, 18. So, instead, here’s Matthew 26:53: “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?”
Peter, it seems to me that Jehovah was continually involved in the Passion. All things had to be accomplished ‘as it was written’, and that writing was in Jehovah’s charge since Gen 3:15.
That implies that the suffering also was foreordained and not subject to Jesus’ or anyone else’s desires. (By that I don’t mean any supernatural intervention. A man of his age and general health, allowing for the extreme cruelty exercised by his jailers, would be expected to suffer and die in a certain number of hours. The acccounts indicate that “it is accomplished” did happen thus. Didn’t need his legs broken.)
Not being Pharisaical here, just trying to keep down the emotional level in a discourse about an already emotion-filled scene.
And John 10:18 is a telling reply to Pilate’s gang of thugs. I always took it to show the voluntary nature of his instant agreement back in Genesis 3;15. Good for us poor sods down here, eh? (Cf. John 18:37. Wrong answer to give to this vice-Caesar.)
Also, from my reading of some of the mystical writers like Faustina, and their assigned ‘confessors and guides’ I can tell you that that passage may not have been in the original but was added to accommodate someone’s personal attitude. Beware of non-biblical sources. 🙄
We now have President who defends Christianity. In contrast to the previous President forbidding any religious themes at the WH on Easter and proclaiming Easter Day as “Transgender Visibility Day”, see this:
“‘The newly created White House Faith Office is grateful to share that President Trump will honor and celebrate Holy Week and Easter with the observance it deserves,’ Jennifer Korn, faith director of the White House Faith Office, told Fox News Digital.
“Throughout the week, we will distribute a Holy Week proclamation, a special presidential video message (and) host a pre-Easter dinner and White House staff Easter service.”
Korn added, “will be a special time of prayer and worship at the White House to be shared with Americans celebrating the week leading up to Resurrection Sunday.”
See https://www.newsmax.com/reagan/face-houck-jesus/2025/04/19/id/1207484/
Dr Huizenga captures the fundamental outlay of the two natures and crucifixion of Christ. The God who indeed is in charge expressed in the divine nature, and the obedient son who cries out, My God, Why have you forsaken me?
“Many Christians in modernity have a conception of the crucifixion restricted to a legal version of penal substitutionary atonement”. The God in charge is in charge throughout, the Son merely a form of puppet without real living experience, without really suffering pain and doubt, without a soul. Christ’s crucifixion was not a sideshow to add theatrical drama to his passion, and for us to indulge our presumptuousness during Lent. It’s for us, as Huizenga rightly isolates, to recognize our guilt and the real price paid in the pouring out of his precious blood, not as in a playact, to redeem us.
So we can say we killed God in killing Christ the Son of Man. A great mystery we can never fully fathom. Except that the shedding of blood that forgives sin can only be repaid by the shedding of our own blood figuratively or real. That our collective condemnation of God in Christ speaks to our despisal of pure love. That repayment can only be with the true coin of love.
After a year of thought on the question, How can we logically say We have killed God [collectively by our sins] in killing his son? If not that it confirms a mystery, the unity of two complete, living natures human and divine in the one person Jesus of Nazareth.
Lurl. If you really love me donate all your money to the poor. Then live a life in imitation of Christ.
If you wonder what I mean by asking if you really love me, the rationale is that my responsibility for your conversion from worship of money would merit the cancellation of a multitude of my sins, and the prospect of my salvation. So I honestly urge you to give your ‘big money’ away and serve Christ.
Do you really believe in god? On this day in 2025, when pure science can prove anything. My family from 5 centuries back has never meddled in any religion. So we have been Atheists for a long ago. All have been successful. And Made Big money. There is no reason for believing in any religion. We celebrate all pagan holidays. We are free from the rites and restrictions. Feel sorry for those who refuse to know the truth. We Love You.
It seems you define success as making money. Others do not seek worldly success. Tell us: Will your money save you from suffering? Will your money save you from death? Will it teach you what you do not know? Did it create you or your parents? Did it create the green grass, the blue sky, the heat of the sun, the freeze on the far-flung planets, the galaxies of which you know little? Did your money make the water of the ocean support the life of the fish within? Did it grow the apple from the tree? And tell us true, how did the dirt of the earth come to be? Tell us true. How did you, pure science, or your money cause that to be?
You consider yourself free of rites and restrictions. We consider you bound to your own small belief in a self much smaller than the infinite ONE-in-THREE. Now there’s a mystery your money cannot solve. Go figure. God loves you.
Dear Lurid,
Atheism, too, is a religion; and the paganism you celebrate is a multitude of such religions. As is pride in being “successful” and making “Big money” as values and ends.
“….This is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends [!] on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors” (Albert Einstein, “Science and Religion” [1939], in “Out of My Later Years,” Philosophical Library, 1950).
“The fool said in his heart, there is no God” (Psalm 14:1).
Success and big money can be a blessing sometimes,sometimes not. But either way, you can’t take them with you.
Eternity is a very long time and something to seriously consider.
And yet, “lurl”, you’re reading a Catholic spiritual website. Why?
“Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to.”
You talk about money and success. Faith has nothing to do with that. Its about having a framework for your life which urges you to the good insofar as you are able to do it. And forgiveness when you know you have failed. It gives you REAL purpose and direction.
I left the church for more than a decade after a personal tragedy. How i returned is a long and personal story. I remain grateful that Jesus had me on his lost sheep list and called me back.
I have a Masters Degree, have lived my life in a large sophisticated city. I am no ones fool. There is a richness in the church and in belief that you will never have in the secular world. I will pray that one day your name might also be on His list. You are missing more than you know.
lurl, Why are you here?
The author comes too close to saying, “The Jews killed him. They really did.”
No, he doesn’t. The essay states:
Seriously.
Yeah, he kinda does. There is no “they” in “mea culpa”. What is lacking from the article is the acknowledgement that each of us can RIGHTLY claim to be the chief of sinners, let alone the memory of having cried out, “CRUCIFY HIM!” on Palm Sunday.
The responsibility for the evil of the Crucifixion does not fall solely on the Jews, nor solely on the Romans, nor on them combined, nor is it even shared by all of humanity as some sort of collective. It falls entirely and without division on each of us. Saying “we” (as he does later) is a little better than saying “they” (as he does at first), but it is still an evasion.
Seriously.
Why do you constantly post ego driven, argumentative, petty posts on this site? What’s the game plan? Seriously.
There is a personal judgment and a general judgment. Nations will be judged at both levels and so will each one of us. Damnation or Merit.
The fierceness of eschatological judgment is not to be underestimated. Christ decreed that the Mosaic law is not abolished but perfected.
Christ also perfected Fear of the Lord and brotherly piety. I wish you well.
From my own initial reading of the article, I instantly thought he was referring to the human race. That each of us has the capacity to murder someone and/or to be murdered. I did think he was referring to human sin overall. Yes, it was the Jewish people who made the choice to put Jesus on the Cross. However, we also need to realize that all of us are capable of doing exactly that; especially in our own ignorance and often lack of humility. It puts Jesus’ death and any death of his followers after on all of our shoulders. Including murdering (and murdering doesn’t have to be physical, either, but emotional) others we judge not to be like us. It happens all the time. True love puts no one on a pedestal except for God/Jesus. And true faith follows that divine nature and not that of human nature.
There is not a single thing in this essay which blames Jews for Jesus’s death.That particular accusation of antisemitism is a figment of your imagination. Although His crucifixion certainly took place because of the machinations of Jewish religious leaders of the time. Every Christian knows ( or should know) that our own sins played just as real a part in the death of Jesus as anyone else’s, including the Jews. But there is no way to pretend the Jews played NO part in his death
The author said no such thing. But there is a minority of traditional Catholics , who still believe it.
As someone who considers themselves a traditional Catholic this greatly saddens me.
And yet, we completely forget the 2nd reading on Good Friday. We forget that the veil of the temple was torn in two, exposing the Holy of holiest. We remember the cross, but Jesus’ sacrifice was done once for all time, and as a result, I don’t take a “gut punch” on Good Friday. I remember, and “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace.” There can be no cross without an empty tomb.
And, FWIW, ‘once for all [time]’ _is_ scriptural.
Yet lest some forget, the Church repeats His words and commemorates His sacrifice by offering to Him Her own. We do exactly as He scripturally asked.
We read: “The World stands guilty of deicide.” Hey, Dr. Huizenga, get with the program! Behold the new Litany of Moveable Goal Posts!
“WHERE particular “moral judgments” are superseded by autonomous “decisions” under the Fundamental Option, consequentialism, and proportionalism (the obsolete Veritatis Splendor)?
WHERE the blessing of “persons” is replaced by the middle-ground non-blessings of situations and “irregular couples”?
WHERE the “permanent council” of the non-synod Der Synodale Weg is stalled, only to be replanted in Rome as a continuous “forum,” under mutating synodality?
WHERE the Second Vatican Council is superseded by synodality; where synodality is eclipsed “experts;” and where experts are eclipsed by “study groups”? The personal and institutional responsibility of Apostolic Succession and guardianship is totally eclipsed by theologians and laity?
WHERE sacramental ordination was redefined as “presiders” and where, soon, as non-ordained “deaconesses”—maybe at the Gospel and homilies, but reassuredly only under limited circumstances?
WHERE study groups will harmonize (!) a middle-ground “relationship between charity and truth;” and where the moral virtue of “prudential judgment” is harmonized into a mongrel middle ground between “innocent as a dove and sly as a serpent;” and, where the truth, charity, and clarity of Veritatis Splendor is sequestered away from “pre-moral” “situations”?
WHERE Jesus Christ—as in Nestorian times—is again schizophrenic: the concrete Jesus versus the horribly idealistic Christ? And, where even the clarity of Council of Nicaea, rather than discerning dogmatically the Triune Oneness, was really only the first step of “walking together” into a more fluid synodality without contours?
AND, yes, where the full Scandal of the Cross did “happen,” but maybe only later as more of a pious overlay? Hyperbole? Such that, today under an ambiguous “pluralism” of religions, Christianity itself is harmonized down into an encysted dhimmi within both Secularism and Islam. A peripheral “special case,” a polyhedral (c)hurch within a polyhedral world—not unlike continental Africa as now eclipsed within the Church by Fiducia Supplicans?
Not, “who am I to judge”—but, rather, who are we Not to “decide”! Or, was it Deicide? Or, whatever. . .
Lord Jesus Christ You are our One Master and our One Faith.
What overwhelms my soul is that Jesus knew beforehand every nuance of the pain and agony He would suffer. I do not understand such courage and sacrifice, that His love for you and even for me, is so all-encompassing. He laid down His life to accomplish “the great exchange”: His life sacrificed for our lives saved.
This reminds me very much of what I got in various Catholic schools back in the 50s. We were certainly taught our responsibility in the crucifixion. The result of that is that the first thing that comes to my mind when I see a crucifix is the accusation, “See what you did to me.”
The only advantage of such a formation is that I don’t fear personal judgment after death. I experience it already every time I see a crucifix. It is very difficult to go beyond that to anything hopeful.
G.K. Chesterton once remarked that history is something like a good joke where the Christian is free to keep a smile because he already knows the punchline.
The punchline is the Resurrection. Even now, in all that we do, both the disappointing AND the good, we are all mysteriously bound together in the Mystical Body of Christ. Our, therefore, invincible hope (yes?) is in simply accepting the “Revelation” that God loves us even BEFORE we are lovable. Which is to say that all of our transgressions combined are still smaller than His infinitely surrounding mercy. We are invited to get with the program by simply allowing Him even now to make each of us into a “new creation” (St. Paul).
Yes, the Latin Rite places the accent more on the sacrificial love of Christ toward the Father (the self-abandonment of the Crucifixion, AND the doxology in the Mass); but within the universal Church the Eastern Rites place the accent more on the Transfiguration and Resurrection. This package deal is the great mystery of faith, hope and charity.
About hopefulness, then, Christ himself even gives us added hints throughout the DIARY of St. Faustina. A good read…
Thank you. I got all that in school. What is too often missing is the realization of what it is that we claim to believe. I give you the benefit of the doubt that, if you were speaking the words your wrote here instead of writing them online, your voice would thrill with ecstasy as you realize ever anew what it is you are saying.
I may find it difficult to hope, but that may be because I hope for more than theological statements. I hope for a relationship that causes me to “rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, because I am receiving the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls.”
I wish you a blessed and gloriously joyful Easter!
Anne Marie,
No need for a “benefit of the doubt,” since I’m not a theologian scattering “theological statements,” nor did I have the benefit of any Catholic schools. About “relationships,” given the time I might pen an article for CWR about a great influence in my life, a Dominican priest who as a young university student converted from devoutly personal Methodism.
The summary of his life: “Emotionally I’m a Protestant, but when I left Protestantism I left nothing behind; I simply gained what I always thought I had.” Upon his earlier sneaking into a Catholic Church and first suspecting the Real Presence in the Eucharist–no theological clutter, but only this: “Is that really YOU, my Jesus?”