By the third day, I'm certain life had begun to gain some sort of semblance of normal for the followers of Christ. His mother, once unconsolable, probably finally started to get some sleep, albeit interrupted by the recurring nightmare of her son, beaten and bloody, stretched out on a cross for all to mock and revile. The smell of his blood as she carried him to the tomb likely still permeated her senses, and the sounds of the cries of her child indelibly burned into her mind. Never mind that he was the Son of God, he was her son. The boy she had held within her womb, the divine child, incarnate grace and love was now quickly becoming nothing more than a memory.
The ground had already shaken when he died, the temple veil torn in two—something that makes us take a step back and contemplate the death of this man—revealing to all around Him that the "presence of God" does not dwell in temples made with human hands. The rending of the veil is the revelation of the Kingdom of Heaven within humanity rather than stone and pomp.
And during all this shaking and mourning, Christ is descending, deeper and deeper into the darkness and pain of human experience. Descending into all that we could ever be in the worst way. Descending into the past hatred of his people by the Egyptians, into the present hatred by Rome, and into future hatred by Hitler and laying hold of that hatred—rendering it powerless. Descending and with every step His still freshly pierced hands and feet "trampling down death by death", dripping blood on everything He touches.