…Because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. (Psalm 16:10,NIV)
I’ve found that the verb “harrow” is an archaic, 12th-Century word for “pillage” or “plunder”. Pillage is “the act of looting or plunder, esp. in war”, while plunder is “to take the goods by force (as in a war)”. If Jesus descended to the depths of Hell, then, he must’ve taken some souls to His bosom. In 1st Peter 3:19, they use the word poreuo, which means “to lead over, carry over or transfer”. More interesting!
Amongst the analysis of these spirits, little is said about His voyage to the depths of the world. If Jesus descended to Hell, then He took away these souls.
But if Jesus descended to our Hell, He took away our past.
Don’t we see ourselves in a Herculean Hades sometimes? Tantalized, whipped, beaten, destroyed in matter and form, life can cook us up some pain in any way or reason. We do look at our pasts, as horrible as they are, and mark them up as crosses we have to carry. That’s where Jesus takes us from that pit and slides us upon a rock. The past is done with, he harrowed it away.
Holy Saturday is more than a middle point for the saddest day of the year and the happiest day of the year (bueno, different people view it that way). It marks the beginning of a new word we would hear to this day, till the end of time: redemption.
Forget the past, He is risen!