Powerless, I watched my hands shake while I tried to get the toothpaste onto the brush as if someone else was controlling my body. When I got it up to my mouth, my hyper-chattering teeth made it difficult to brush.
One minute I was hot. Within a millisecond, I was back to the chills. Sometimes, they inexplicably overlapped. There seemed to be no amount of layering clothes or taking them off that properly regulated my body temperature.
In the morning, a pile of tee shirts were on the floor from flinging the drenched things off my back. Speedily, I’d rush to the underwear drawer and throw another on as fast as I could and throw myself under the blanket to warm back up.
The acetaminophen was supplemented with a sleep aid that produced the strangest of dreams, only to create a confusing Hitchcockian longest evening of my life. It was the dark night of my body, mind and soul.
I groggily tossed at daylight trying to make sense of a very detailed dream that walked me step by step through a house of worship of committed followers to a false god. I was going to walk away and turned back as if to evangelize them. I awoke with the feeling that, just like Jesus, Our Father will bring us through the depths before we can arise to the steps of his throne.
As far as we can tell, Jesus went to hell alone on Easter Saturday. It might be said that he visited and preached to those in Hades to rescue and to those held captive.
The only similarity between my situation and that of Jesus is that it happened over Good Friday night and into Easter Saturday morning. But unlike me and the obvious differences, Our Savior did not call in sick.
An excerpt from The Apostles’ Creed:
He descended into hell; The third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: The portal of Jesus’ love and condescension into the very pits of hell shows the depths of heaven’s determination. Always holding the trump card, Jesus ironically turned hell into a portal to heaven for those who desired his free-fall rescue.
Now that He ascended, what is it, but because He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?…God hath raised up Christ, having loosed the sorrows of hell, as it was impossible that He should be holden by it…Christ coming in spirit preached to those spirits that were in prison, which had some time been incredulous…“O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite…Thou also by the blood of Thy Testament hast sent forth Thy prisoners out of the pit…Despoiling the principalities and powers, He hath exposed them confidently…
Ephesians 4:9, Acts 2:24, 1 Peter 3:19, Hosea 13:14 , Zechariah 9:11, Colossians 2:15