By His Stripes, We Are Healed
Saturday, April 19th Readings Reflection: Holy Saturday At the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter
Today is the day in which Christ descended to the Bosom of Abraham, bringing His light to the souls awaiting Him there. The new Adam was greeted by the first Adam, who acknowledged his Savior in holy fear. The merciful Jesus showed Adam the wounds by which He wrought the salvation of mankind, the same wounds by which we ourselves obtain sanctifying grace through the Church. Speaking as Christ, an ancient sermon for Holy Saturday describes the beautiful meaning behind Christ’s wounds:
Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation. See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image.
See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back. See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one.
I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.
When God created Adam in the Garden of Eden, He breathed the breath of eternal life into his soul; since we lost this life through sin, Jesus endured suffocating spittle on His holy Face so that we might receive life again. God created us in His own image, but sin distorts (but never completely destroys) our intrinsically good natures and diminishes the image of God within us. By His disfigured Face, wounded with so many blows, Christ restored His image in us. The cruel scourging that Jesus endured lifted the weight of our sins from our backs.
Just as Adam and Eve stretched forth their hands to the tree and sinned, so Christ stretched forth His hands on the Cross to redeem us. Sin damaged the goodness of the relationship between man and woman established by God in the Garden of Eden; by the lance that pierced Christ’s side, He has merited infinite graces for men and women to faithfully live their vows as husband and wife in accordance with God’s law. By Christ’s “sleep” for three days in the tomb, He has saved us from an eternal slumber of damnation.
However, Jesus did not merely wipe away past sins or those sins particular to Adam and Eve; His Passion and Death atoned for all sins of all mankind—past, present, and future. By offering Himself out of pure love, Jesus Christ, though innocent, satisfied the justice of God that demands eternal damnation for sins. By Christ’s Passion and Death, we can obtain forgiveness for our sins and attain eternal salvation no matter how many times we fall. If we turn to Christ and sincerely repent of our sins, He will wash us in the blood and water that flowed from His side and cleanse us over and over again through the infinite merits of His Passion and Death.
My priest often reminds us that the risen Jesus retained the wounds on His Body as a physical sign of His love and to remind us that redemption is possible through our own woundedness. Christ’s Death is not a license to sin wantonly with the presumption that we are saved no matter what; rather, it is a call for us to more deeply love the One Who loved us to the point of death. On this holy day of silence and waiting, Christ shows His wounds to those in darkness, both the darkness of the Bosom of Abraham and also the darkness we each bear in our own lives. By His glorious wounds, He illuminates the darkness like the light of the Easter candle at the glorious Paschal Vigil tonight, a symbol of the light each one of us bears in our souls through the grace wrought by Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection, by which we have the hope of one day beholding His light for all eternity.
Highly appreciated, thank you for this meditation!