Introduction
Rambo’s description of the Spirit and of Holy Saturday challenged my understanding of God’s being. After reading them, I thought about why God allows the suffering of the innocent and whether there is any sense in this. I tried to combine faith in an all-powerful, loving God with such a blatant injustice, but it did not work out for me.
Even being crucified, Christ asks God the Father why He left Him (Bishop Robert, 2014b). This detail, emphasized by Rambo, especially touched my feelings. This kind of doubt and perplexity gave rise in me to Rambo’s description of the Spirit and Holy Saturday.
Critique of Rambo’s Interpretation
However, it seems to me that Rambo somewhat distorted the meaning of Holy Scripture and the concept of Holy Saturday. First of all, she uses quotations torn from the text rather than full ones (Rambo & Keller, 2010). As a result, her understanding of the holy scriptures is incomplete. Moreover, in some parts of the book, Rambo arbitrarily established cause-and-effect relationships (Rambo & Keller, 2010). In particular, this concerns the conclusions about the meaning of suffering in the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Saturday holiday.
Another technique I noticed in Rambo is a false alternative, in which reasoning is based on the indispensable opposition of two extreme points of view, with nothing in between. For example, she proceeds from the following alternative: either every expression of the Holy Scripture should be understood as accurate in the truest sense of the word, or the Holy Scripture is not an actual book at all (Rambo & Keller, 2010). Therefore, due to a misunderstanding of figurative metaphors in the description of Holy Saturday, the meaning was distorted.
After reading Rambo, it became more difficult for me to understand the relationship between Christ and Hell after Holy Saturday. I drew attention to Christ’s statement that He «will be with us till the end of the century» after rereading Rambo and the official interpretation of the Bible (Rambo & Keller, 2010, p. 59). It is they who sound in the readings at the liturgy during the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ (McGrath, 2011). Time has no power over the God—man who has risen from the dead once: from the moment of His resurrection from the dead, He belongs to Eternity and therefore remains with us always – both as God and as Man.
After reading Rambo, I began to doubt whether Great Saturday would be an exception. However, I realized that Christ descended into hell with His soul only as a Human Being (Harvard Divinity School, 2014). He annihilated it as God, and, «after encountering the Lord, hell could no longer stay hell, a realm without God» (Pneumatology, 2019, 05:36). All the dead who loved the Lord and waited to meet Him, He brought with Him.
Rambo does not say that Holy Week surpasses all the days of Great Lent, but in Holy Week itself, the most fantastic day is Great and Holy Saturday. The author only mentions that, as at the creation of the world, having created man on the sixth day, on the seventh day God rested from all His works and sanctified the seventh day (Rambo & Keller, 2010). Therefore, now, the Lord, on the sixth day, having recreated human nature decayed by sin, having renewed it with the Life-giving Cross and death, has rested on the present day(Bishop Robert, 2014a).
Christ, the Word of God, descends with the flesh into the tomb, and descends into hell with His incorruptible and Divine soul (Simpson, 2016). However, Rambo overlooked the fact that the soul of the Lord could not be held in hell; the redeeming feat of the Savior destroyed the power of death (Pneumatology, 2019). Christ brings out of hell the souls of the righteous who have been there up to that time.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to note that the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures should be preceded by a critical study of the manuscripts, aimed at establishing the most accurate reading of the text. Parts of the text must be studied in the context of the entire work. A significant role in interpreting the text is played by the reconstruction of the historical and cultural environment in which the work under study was created (Simpson, 2016). Perhaps it played a role in what Rambo wrote and in challenging me.
When I became acquainted with her interpretation, I did not have a clear idea of the author’s personality, so she influenced me somewhat. With this, I found out what the meaning of what was written was primarily for Rambo herself and her entourage, and then I determined what it could mean in a modern context (Bishop Robert, 2014a). However, comparative analysis and comparison with other similar texts from the readings on the analysis of the Holy Scriptures and Holy Saturday helped me return to the correct understanding.
References
Bishop Robert Barron. (2014a). Bishop Barron on Hans Urs von Balthasar (Part 1 of 2). YouTube.
Bishop Robert Barron. (2014b). Bishop Barron on Hans Urs von Balthasar (Part 2 of 2). YouTube.
Harvard Divinity School. (2014). Witnessing breath between death and life: Reinterpreting Holy Saturday. YouTube.
McGrath, A. E. (2011). Theology: The basics. Wiley-Blackwell.
Pneumatology. (2019). Why worship the Spirit? A historical introduction to pneumatology.
Rambo, S., & Keller, K. (2010). Spirit and trauma: A theology of remaining. Westminster John Knox Press.
Simpson, S. B. (2016). Modern Christian theology. T&T Clark.