Richard Davenport

Easter Vigil

            Back in the 14th century, an Italian poet named Dante Alighieri wrote a long poem that has become a classic of Western literature.  Most of you have probably heard of Dante’s Inferno, but Inferno is actually the first third of the larger work entitled, “the Divine Comedy.”  Comedy in those days had a slightly different meaning than it does today.  It isn’t so much about humor as it is the direction of the story.  If a tragedy is a story that starts good and ends bad, a comedy is a story that starts bad and ends good.  So if you pick up Dante’s Divine Comedy and you read it, you’ll know that, while it starts pretty bleak, it’ll end up in a good place.

            If you’ve never read it, it’s sort of a fictitious autobiography.  The main character is Dante himself.  Though our dealings with spiritual things aren’t things you can generally see or interact with, Dante makes it all very physical.  He begins the story describing a particularly low point in his life.  He is caught up in worldly concerns and overcome with bleakness and despair.  He is out walking in the woods one day and gets turned around and, after a few encounters, discovers he has stepped into a place of true darkness.  He also finds that, having entered, he cannot simply turn around and leave.

            He is met at this point by the Roman poet, Virgil, a pagan, but a highly educated one, who explains that he is a resident here, here being Hell.  Virgil tells him that he has been sent to guide Dante.  Dante isn’t dead yet, so this is not necessarily his future, not yet at least.  He has to traverse the realm of Hell, to see it all and understand it, as the first part of his journey and, hopefully, his repentance and redemption.  But for Dante, the only way out is through. 

            Dante is still a reasonably good Catholic man.  He has Catholic ideas and follows Catholic theology.  He isn’t afraid to call certain popes rotten crooks and the character of Dante encounters more than one pope down in the torments of Hell.  But still, his concept of what Hell is is built from Catholic teachings.  Virgil explains that Dante isn’t in Hell yet.  He’s still on the outskirts.  Here, according to Dante’s concept of things, there is a place for all of those who never heard the Gospel and thus were never given the opportunity to come to faith. They never get to be with God, but they are not condemned to eternal torment either.  They float in this in between place forever. 

            Dante’s journey is just beginning.  He has to see Hell firsthand, listen to the stories of those who ended up there and understand why they are all cautionary tales. Perhaps, if Dante absorbs the lessons they have to share, he can turn from these ways and receive the salvation that Christ died to give him.

            As Dante walks through this Limbo, this in between place, he and Virgil come to the gates of Hell.  The gates are the only opening into the walled place that is Hell proper.  Above the gate is a plaque that makes very clear what awaits everyone condemned to eternity in this place.  Variously translated from the medieval Italian, it says, “THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING CITY, THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL PAIN, THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST. JUSTICE URGED ON MY HIGH ARTIFICER; MY MAKER WAS DIVINE AUTHORITY, THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE. BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS WERE MADE, AND I ENDURE ETERNALLY. ABANDON ALL HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER HERE.”

            The ultimate expression of hopelessness.  That’s what defines Hell and everything about it. Dante’s journey through Hell takes him into ever increasing levels of darkness, fire, and terrible torments, all without any chance of reprieve.  For those who are here, there truly is no chance that life will ever get better and each of them spends eternity with that crushing realization in front of them at every moment of every day forever.  Utter and complete hopelessness.

            In spite of some Catholic ideas, there is much in Dante’s work that is worthy of reflection.  From the very beginning, we find some important things to consider. No one simply ends up in Hell. That path is a journey.  It is a walk that, through humility and the work of the Spirit, could be avoided.  Yes, we are all sinners from the very beginning.  But, God is at work through our whole lives to call us away from this path, to pull us back from the brink, because, as Dante correctly shows, at some point it will be too late.  Once you have set foot in that dark place, there is no leaving. 

            If we back up the path just a bit, the entry into Hell always goes through death.  Hell is really just an extension of death, expanding the blackness of the tomb into eternity.  One of the things that drew people to read Dante is his concept of Hell.  Real people and real torments.  It gave people a way to visualize something that is beyond our ability to fully understand.  However, we have no problem visualizing death.  We may have trouble thinking about a specific person dying, but the reality of death is all around us.  It doesn’t take very long in life before we encounter it in one way or another. The family dog dies.  Your uncle dies.  That guy your dad always played golf with was killed in a car accident. That lady your mom works with who always gave you candy canes found out she had stage 4 cancer and died a week later. The older you get, the more death you encounter.  Like a slow moving avalanche, it comes rolling down through life crushing everything eventually.  Whether it catches you sooner or later, it WILL catch you and snuff out your light as well.

            Watching death come crashing down on you is to look into hopelessness.  Death cannot be argued with.  It cannot be bargained with.  You can’t beg it for even one more minute.  And it cannot be avoided.  Even worse, death spreads its dark tendrils everywhere, infiltrating other points in our life.  That same hopelessness can infect our lives no matter where we are or what we are doing. Suddenly, something happens and what looked like a normal and pleasant day looks like it could be the end.  You work to find other options, but none come through.  You watch the days ticking by and know your deadline is coming up.  You will soon be out of time.  Out of a job.  Out on the street.  Out of chances to repair your relationship.  No more time.  No more hope. That despair and hopelessness encircles you, pulling you down into the darkness.  Soon, you find yourself like Dante, wandering about in that darkness until you’ve stepped over the boundary and are lost for good.

            We look at the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.  We shake our heads and chide the disciples.  “They should have known better.  They should have known what was coming.  Jesus told them plainly.  They had nothing to worry about.”  We chide them because we know where the story goes from here.  To better understand the disciples, we need to look to our own lives, to those dark moments where it looked as though all hope was lost and the only place we would soon be going was down into the darkness.  This is what the disciples felt.  They locked themselves away because they had tied their hopes and their futures to one man, one vibrant man, one light that blazed brightly in the midst of some terrible darkness.  He looked like he would shine forever, but, suddenly, inexplicably, that light had been snuffed out and now all was darkness.  The darkness hadn’t found them yet, but it would, and then they too would be joining him.

            There is another point that Dante makes that is worth our consideration.  The only way out is through.  That isn’t to say that the residents of Hell can leave if they want to.  After all, this is an allegorical tale and, in the character’s life, his end hasn’t been determined yet.  He still has time.  For Christ, things are a bit different.  He dies on Good Friday.  He dies in darkness and isolation.  He dies in pain, but he also dies in hope.  “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”  The hope Jesus has isn’t the kind of wishful thinking that occupies our daily lives.  It is a sure and certain hope, hope built on the promises of God, promises that can never and will never fail.  Jesus dies, but he knows his end isn’t down in the pits of torment that lie beyond those dark gates.  He, like Dante, will go there, but he, like Dante, is just passing through. 

            Where Dante goes to learn a lesson about sin and redemption, Jesus goes to give a lesson about darkness and light, death and life, defeat and triumph, hopelessness and eternal, immovable hope. As Dante progresses down through the ever deepening layers, encountering those whose sin is ever worse, ever more destructive, he finally gets to the bottom, where Satan himself is buried to his waist in cold ice.  He is there as a resident too.  Though he torments three of those Dante considers the worst sinners in history, Judas Iscariot chief among them, he cannot leave.  Dante finds that the only way to continue his journey is to climb up Satan’s body and escape the confines of Hell.

            Jesus doesn’t come to escape.  Jesus comes to conquer.  The gates of Hell proclaim, “JUSTICE URGED ON MY HIGH ARTIFICER; MY MAKER WAS DIVINE AUTHORITY, THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE.”  The High Artificer is here.  The one who wields the highest wisdom, the one who bears the love that existed before all things, the one who can truly say, “All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me.”  The gates of Hell have no authority to hold him, because he made them.  Jesus enters Hell and marches down to its very core where Satan himself resides.  He strides down bearing that pure and unadulterated light that shown forth in the blackness on the first day of creation, the light no darkness can overcome.  Jesus’ torment is over.  Now he comes to fulfill what was promised the moment sin entered the world. Satan had made his move.  He had struck the heel of the Son of God and now that same promised messiah had come to the very heart of darkness to crush Satan eternally.  Jesus was not trapped with Satan.  Satan was trapped with him.

            Tomorrow the disciples will start to understand exactly what has happened.  If Jesus can conquer death, if Jesus can conquer Satan even in the middle of his stronghold, then there is truly nothing Jesus cannot do.  Dante’s portrayal is still accurate.  Once any of us set foot in Hell, there is no turning back.  But, before then, the darkness of Hell has no power. Everything, up to and even including the point of death, is lived in the hope found in Christ the conqueror. Every moment of our lives is in his control.  He has the power to rescue and to save from everything, even death itself.  The moment of death is no longer the doorway to that dark place.  Christ has conquered there.  Now we who follow Christ move not from light to darkness, but from light to greater light, the sputtering, fitful light we see here is exchanged for the pure and holy light that shines from the Lamb of God seated on his throne.

            Christ was not afraid of death, because he always had hope, hope in God’s promise.  He tells you not to be afraid of death either.  He has conquered that darkness and will lead you through it. Do not be afraid of death.  Do not be afraid of anything that leads to death. Do not be afraid of losing anything in this life, because Christ has conquered all of that and more besides. 

            We gather here to keep the vigil of Easter. We gather in darkness, but we do not huddle here like the disciples, waiting for the dark tendrils of Hell to batter the doors down and drag us into the pit.  We wait here for the light that we know with certainty will come.  We wait for the one who conquerors the darkness to lead us forth into that dark world in triumph.  Yes, it is dark now, but Easter is coming.