Many Bodies of the Saints Who Had Fallen Asleep Were Raised

During Holy Week, we have a lot of public reading of Scripture. For example, over the course of the morning, afternoon, and evening services yesterday on Great and Holy Friday, all of these were read out loud: http://oca.org/readings/daily/2014/04/18

Right after Jesus died, "the tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many." (Matt 27:52-53, ESV). What struck me as I was listening to this passage was the order of events. This remarkable occurrence happened not at the point of Jesus' resurrection, but at the point of His death. In other words, as soon as Jesus died, He descended into Hades and began liberating the captives. And as a sign of this reality, some saints were even anticipatorily raised from the dead!

The Church unpacks this mysterious undertaking in many places in her Holy Tradition. First, in a few passages from her Scriptures:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison .... (1 Peter 3:18 - 19, ESV)

And

Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) (Eph 4:8-10, ESV)

Also, the Church further elaborates in her hymnography . For example, this verse from the Paschal Canon:

You went down to the nether regions of earth,
and You broke apart the bars that forever
were closed on those who were held there, O Christ.
From the sepulcher,
as did Jonah from the whale,
You arose on the third day.

And the paschal troparion that we will tirelessly repeat tonight (our Pascha service starts at 11 p.m. and goes until the wee hours of Sunday morning) as we triumphantly process around the church:

Christ is risen from the dead,
by death trampling down upon death,
and to those in the tombs He has granted life.

And then with masterful rhetoric the Church also captures the exchange in a Paschal sermon of one of her saints, St. John Chrysostom :

No one need lament poverty,
for the kingdom is seen as universal.
No one need grieve over sins;
forgiveness has dawned from the tomb.
No one need fear death;
the Savior's death has freed us from it.
While its captive He stifled it.
He despoiled Hades as He descended into it;
it was angered when it tasted His flesh.
Foreseeing this, Isaiah proclaimed: "Hades," he said, "was angered when he met You below." (Is 14:9 LXX)
It was angered because it was abolished
It was angered because it was mocked
It was angered because it was slain.
It was angered because it was shackled.
It received a body and encountered God.
It took earth and came face-to-face with heaven.
It took what I saw and fell by what if could not see.
Death, where is your sting?
Hades, where is your victory?

So as we can see, even though Jesus was physically dead, He was quite active for those three days in the tomb. Since this activity took place in the unseen realms of the netherworld, it would be really easy to project inactivity onto Him. But in the mysterious raising from the dead of these saints, we catch a glimpse into Jesus' hidden activity. Amen!