#108 Hidden Symbols in the Resurrection Icon + Father Michael Butler

The Orthodox Resurrection Icon Reveals Christ’s Descent into Hades

So I feel like there are a lot of details that we leave on the table. We don't see Christ ascending into Hades. We don't see him shattering the gates of death. We don't see the raising of Adam and Eve.

How does even the Orthodox Church know how to depict it?

We don't depict the actual resurrection of Christ because on one hand, nobody witnessed it. So how do we know what happened? Christ himself appears in Hades and when he breaks the bronze gates of death and he leaves everybody out.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. All of the bonds that held us in sin and death have been broken loose from us. That is gorgeous. Christ went down and he stole everybody out of Hades.

Where does this idea of Christ descending into Hades to rob it? Hi, it's Cass. I wanted to first start off by saying thank you for listening. I created this because I could not find it anywhere else on the internet and it takes a very small team and a large upfront investment to make it all possible.

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In exchange for the support, I personally promise to you to always create the highest quality production possible. Thank you so much for listening. Now let's get to the show. Hello, hello. Welcome to Biblically Speaking.

I'm your host, Cassian Blino. And today we're going to talk about the resurrection icon of Jesus from the Orthodox perspective. Because as a Christian, most of us picture the resurrection the same way.

It's just an empty tomb. But the Bible is going to actually describe that moment of Jesus walking out of the tomb, mostly because it's obvious. I mean, no one's going to witness the resurrection itself.

The Gospels are beginning Easter morning with the Myrrh-bearing women. They're discovering the empty tomb. And while ancient Orthodox Church depicts the resurrection through a very different image, we don't get that from the Protestant and the Sunday school Christian perspective.

And so I feel like there are a lot of details that we leave on the table. Like we don't see Christ ascending into Hades. We don't see him shattering the gates of death. We don't see the raising of Adam and Eve.

The Resurrection Icon and Its Orthodox Meaning

So today I've brought back Father Michael Butler to follow the story of Easter from the empty tomb to the Myrrh-bearing women. We're going to explore the symbology of why Adam and Eve are even present at the resurrection.

We're going to see Jesus overcoming Hades and the broken gates that he stands on, and the cameo from John the Baptist. But for those that are new, welcome. We are bringing back a guest that is always a hit for me.

I mean, I always learn everything being Russian Orthodox. Meeting Father Michael Butler has been such a blessing. And for those that have not listened to any of the episodes we've done in the past, go back and listen.

Cue them up. They are phenomenal when it comes to seeing the ancient texts and the history of the Christian faith. But if you don't know him, very reverend Archpriest Father Michael, you served as Orthodox priest for more than 30 years.

You have a PhD in church history and patristics. You specialize in St. Maximus the Confessor, and you spent decades studying the theology, history and symbolism of the early church. You previously helped us understand the history of Orthodoxy, confession, the nativity icon, the crucifix icon.

And today we're returning to one of Christianity's richest and most misunderstood images, the resurrection icon. Welcome back to the show. Thank you. It's good to be back. So it's good to be with you.

It's always such a fun conversation, and it's always great when we end one of our last calls talking about the crucifix. You say, well, we should talk about the resurrection next. How much involvement does this icon have in your day to day?

Or is it more of a once a year during Easter?

No, well, I mean, the resurrection in the first place is meaningful for every moment of our Christian lives. So it sort of has valence throughout the year. In most Orthodox churches, there is somewhere going to be a large icon or fresco of the resurrection.

In fact, that was that was the last icon that was completed. The last large fresco in my last parish was finished just a few months before I retired. So I was very glad to be able to see that done and to enjoy it for a little while.

It's central to our faith because it's it is the central event in salvation history. It was Christ overcoming death. Some people make a kind of a shallow observation that all the Western church focuses a little more on the crucifixion of Christ and the Eastern church focuses a little more on the resurrection of Christ.

I don't know that that really attains. For us, of course, a great deal culminates with Christ on the cross. But the work which he began there isn't completed until the resurrection. You know, this is why, you know, the Saturday between Great and Holy Friday and Paschal Easter Sunday in our hymnography is called the Great Sabbath, because on that day, Christ rests from all the work that he'd been doing, from all of the work of salvation and preaching and healing and preparing and dying for our sins.

He rests. And that's what the Old Testament Sabbath was about. Anyway, that was a sign, a symbol, a type of the real rest that God would do when he rested in the tomb on the sixth day there and then waiting to be resurrected on this great, on Great and Holy Pascha on Sunday morning.

The Great Sabbath and Christ’s Descent into Hades

The Great Sabbath is such a mystery, I think, to Protestants and myself, you know, what was actually happening, because, you know, is the scene of Jesus going down into Hades? I know we talk about it, but do we actually have it in the Gospels of him coming up, walking out of the tomb?

That's not depicted in the Gospels, is it? No, no, no.

It's a popular image in Catholic and Protestant churches of Jesus sort of marching triumphantly out from the tomb very often, holding a cross like a standard and all is nowhere in Scripture. Nobody witnessed the resurrection at all.

Matthew's account, we have the angel rolling away the stone from the tomb. All right. The tomb was already empty. He didn't roll the stone away to let Jesus out. OK.

So how do we know what happened? You know, how does even the Orthodox Church know how to depict it?

Well, that's why the tomb is always empty. We don't depict the actual resurrection of Christ because, on one hand, nobody witnessed it. And on the other hand, it's an event that is so big, it kind of transcends history and time and space.

It's something that begins when Christ breaks out of Hades or Sheol. I don't care what term you use. I understand in the previous episode here, you're arguing about Sheol or Hades. Get over it, OK? That's not worth spending your time on.

And if you're stuck there, you're not big enough for this podcast. So go watch something else. All right. What Christ was doing after his death was he went down and he preached to those in Hades and he preached to all, you know, every soul that had died was down there in Hades, you know, awaiting the resurrection.

And that's, in fact, what John the Baptist was doing after he was beheaded. He went down and he preached, Messiah is coming. He who is not worthy to lose, that one is coming into the world. And so John the Baptist preceded Christ into Hades, preached his imminent coming, and then Christ himself appears in Hades.

And when he breaks the bronze gates of death and he leads everybody out, then all of the righteous, well, everybody goes with him. You know, but not everybody maybe enjoys the encounter with Christ.

So they leave Hades and receive their judgment?

Yeah. That's that's now. That's difficult to say. We should probably have a whole episode just on that, because our hymnography says, and Hades, Sheol is impotent at this point because its gates are broken down.

There ain't nobody left down there.

I guess it's difficult for the Protestant mind, because when you say Hades, I think hell, and I think it's the same place. So when you say nobody's left there, it's like, so there were no bad people anymore?

No, there were still bad people. Of course there were, you know, and they encountered the living God and they probably did not enjoy the encounter.

Because where would they have gone if they didn't enjoy the encounter?

I think they're probably still with Christ, but they're not enjoying it. You see, God desires everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. And Christ says, when I am raised up, I will draw all men to myself.

So that has not yet happened yet. Yes, it has happened. It was happening for us. I mean, for everyone who has, who has died already, you know, yeah, they are with Christ, but you see, God is like, to think of it this way, God is like a consuming fire that's in Hebrews, okay?

Fire has two qualities, light, which illumines, and it has heat, which burns. So if we are righteous people, then when we encounter the light of God, it will be illuminating, and when we encounter the fire of God, it will warm us.

It's the warmth of God's love. If we have not been good people, the light of Christ will be blinding and the fire of his love will burn. And the only image that I can think of, like, you know, sinners in the hand of an angry God, well, first of all, he's not an angry God, okay?

I'm not a Calvinist, I don't believe that. But sinners in the hand of a loving God, you ever pick up a two-year-old that doesn't want to be held, you just want to hug the kid because you love him, and he kicks and screams and fights to get away?

That would be a sinner in the hand of God. That's about the best image I've ever come up with to kind of explain it. Interesting. And because, you know, the apocalypse, the book of Revelation says that, you know, until the second coming of Christ, you know, then we're reunited with our bodies, then he is the, is the last judgment and people are assigned.

But the lake of fire was prepared for the devil, for Satan and for his angels. That is not Aden's. That's, that's kind of a common conflation and a misunderstanding. That was not meant for us. Okay. And that doesn't, and there ain't nobody in pits of flames right now, the devils and pitchforks.

The Myrrh-Bearing Women and the Empty Tomb

Okay. Well, I know that we're going to spend some time talking about the icon itself, the resurrection icon, what's going on, and we're going to share the screen. So if you're driving, please watch this later so you can, you know, look at the screen and know what we're talking about, but I want to start with the Myrrh-Bearing Women, which is like, in your opinion, they're a part of the resurrection, but they're not, they also have their own icon.

Yeah. Well, what we have in the history is two fundamental icons of the resurrection. One is the work of Christ, you know, breaking the bronze gates of Hades and releasing the captives who are down there, his own resurrection from the dead.

And the second is more of an historical account, which you see here of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, which are the women who came to the tomb of Christ early in the morning on Sunday, you know, early in the morning on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the other women came with Myrrh to anoint the body of Jesus.

You know, that's where they ask who will roll away the stone from us or roll away the stone from the door of the tomb. Okay. Yeah. Use that one because that one, yes, this one has Myrrh-Bearing Women there on the left, and we know they're Myrrh-Bearing because they've got these little pictures or these little vessels.

That's the Myrrh, that's the ointment they're carrying, which is why they're called Myrrh-Bearing Women. Okay. They're carrying Myrrh. Okay. And they've come to the tomb of Christ. And so here we see the tomb of Christ.

First we see it's in a cave. You see a bit of the cave there on the background. So there's, I want to point out the darkness of the cave because that's important. The cave right here? Yeah. Yeah. That's a bit of it.

So it sort of shows the, sort of the tomb of Christ kind of out of the cave so we can see it a little bit. There are the grave clothes of Christ lying, you know, in the, in the grave. The, you know, the scarf over his face is laid separate from the rest.

And notice that it looks sort of like mummy wrappings.

It looks like a mummy, really pretty coffin, like decorated. And then I didn't know that we squished the soldiers with...

Well, they're just asleep there by the side. That's why I like this, this particular image, because it includes the soldiers, which, you know, this is incredible. They look dead, don't they? You know, so the one who was supposed to be dead is alive.

And the ones who are there that were supposed to be alive look like they're dead.

Okay. This is a stupid question, but what, what is myrrh?

Myrrh? Oh, it's a, it's a fragrant ointment. So is it from a plant? Yeah. Oh, yes. Okay. Okay. So they have like perfume here. Yes. Yes. It's a heavy, it's a heavy, strongly perfumed ointment.

And then another stupid question. It looks like they have halos around their head. Is it because they're saints? Yep. Oh, I didn't realize that they were considered saints. Well, yeah. I thought, you know, again, this is like, this is so dumb of me to think, but I always thought that in icons, people with halos around them were either angels or they were the good guys, you know, it was kind of like the orthodox way of saying like, these are good people in this, in this image.

No, well, they're, they are saints and the Myrrh-bearing women clearly are good people. Yeah. Because they were disciples of Christ. They were followers of Christ.

And, and even the angel has a halo.

Even the angel has a halo here. And you see, he's pointing to the empty tomb. Look and see the place where he lay. That's what he's there doing. And sitting on the stone, this is, this is not quite a round stone like we typically imagine.

Maybe in other images of the Myrrh-bearing women, you know, the stone looks a little more, no, he's sitting on that, on the, like, like the, the lid of the casket, but in some, but anyway, it's the stone.

Women as the First Witnesses of the Resurrection

Why is the Myrrh-bearing women so important in the orthodox faith? I feel like in the Protestant faith, we just kind of like mentioned them, but we move on really, really quickly.

They're important because they were the first witnesses of the empty tomb. They were the first ones to receive the announcement from the angel. He is not here. He is risen. See the place where he laid.

I thought that was Mary Magdalene.

Depending on the gospel account. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're saying that in some accounts, it's Mary and some accounts, it's the Myrrh, but those aren't the same people. Hey, it's Cass.

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Now, back to the show. Maybe. It's hard to know. It's hard to know. Potentially, it could be the same people.

It could be the same. Yeah, this first figure here to the right, it might well be Mary Magdalene. You know, but in John's account, it's a John's gospel. Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb by herself. And mistakes Jesus for the gardener, remember?

Again, this is me not remembering. But yeah, but in Matthew, Mark and Luke, there are a number of myrrh bearing women who go to the tomb. So there are different accounts. Maybe Mary Magdalene went on her own and then the other women came or maybe they all went together.

It's, you know, it's a rich story. And sometimes the gospel authors pull out details to suit their purpose. Like in John's gospel, why is Mary Magdalene mistaken for the gardener? Because it's the same Lord that walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden at the beginning.

He is not walking. And, you know, after the resurrection, you see, you see, St. John is drawing the parallel. He wants you to think of Adam and Eve here at the resurrection of Christ. And we'll get to that when we get to the other icon, the actual icon of the resurrection.

The Historical Significance of the Women’s Testimony

OK, so we'll go to the other icons. But I think that highlighting this in the Orthodox space is really showing that women, in fact, were there. And that's important from a credibility standpoint.

Yeah, well, and this is this is important as part of the scandal of the gospel, because in the ancient world, women's testimony was not legally recognized. I don't think in Jewish courts, definitely not in Roman courts.

So their witness would not have been legal, you know, in most people's understanding. But they were the first witnesses. And it was these women who went back and announced the resurrection to the apostles.

So they are they are the first evangelists of the resurrection, these women. In fact, in the tradition, St. Mary Magdalene is called East Apostles, equal to the apostles. Because she was the she was the first, potentially the first one there to hear the resurrection.

Some of the some of the ancient fathers of the church, I think Matthew's account it is says that there was another Mary with the murdering women that many believe was Jesus's mother. Right. And so perhaps she was the first witness of the resurrection, which would be a sweet thing to understand.

But among the murdering women, possibly his mother, there were there were a number of them. This this only has what, three, yeah, three, two or three usually are all that are depicted. But let me see.

They were who are they all? Oh, yeah, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Joseph, a few more details. OK, OK. Sorry. Yeah. So now I'll pull that one up so I can look at it myself. So, yes, in that one and in the broader one, we see the three was Mary of Cleopa, Salome, Joanna, the wife of Chusa and Martha and Mary of Bethany and Susanna.

So that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, potentially eight, potentially.

Eight. Eight women at the tomb at the tomb mourning of.

Yeah. Yeah. Differing accounts. But, you know, there they are.

Wow. That's sweet. That is sweet because it's interesting because both the icon I just talked about and this icon do not show nearly eight people. They show, you know, maybe three, maybe two.

Yeah, it's it's represent in this case is representative, you know, the composition would suffer if you had eight women stuffed on one side.

Christ’s Descent and the Icon as a Living Reality

OK, I'm going to pivot to the icon itself, which is this one. Well, the resurrection.

Sorry, not this one. Let's pull up a Gnosticist one. I think it's OK. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's talk about this icon. This icon is, you know, first off, gorgeous. So beautiful. Love the coloring. Love the details. You know, we just said, you know, you're not going to fit eight women.

There's a ton of people in this icon.

Yeah. And yeah, whenever everybody gets kind of made a little smaller, too.

But there are a ton of lots of detail here. Let's kind of go one by one on what we're seeing here, because I think you've done a great job in previous episodes talking about icons are not a still image.

They're not a photograph. They're not a depiction of one moment. It's the living moment that we experience still today. How did you put it so beautifully? I couldn't tell you. How would you, I guess, simplistically describe the purpose of an icon and how it's not a photograph?

Oh, no, it's not a photograph. It makes what it shows is the reality of the meaning of the event that's taking place. And icons in Orthodox understanding are not pictures. They make the event or the person that's depicted in the icon present and real to us now.

There it is. So this is not just, oh, this is a picture of what happened 2 ,000 years ago. Sorry, you're born too late to see it. No, we are able to participate and to see the resurrection and to share in it today through the icon.

It makes it present to us here and now. So the reality of Christ's saving work we know is present to each one of us here and now. Otherwise, none of us could be saved. The saving work of Christ is here with us now and that's what the icon is representing to us.

Which is why it's so important that we understand this icon. Forgive me? This is why it's so important that we understand this icon. So we're going to go piece by piece and we're going to break down what's happening.

Because when I look at this with my Sunday school eyes, it looks like Jesus at the center. It looks like a lot of people witnessing his resurrection and coming back alive. It's the moment he kind of says, I'm alive, I'm back.

A bunch of witnesses, important people are witnessing it. We have kings on the left. It looks like we have some shepherds on the right. And it looks like to me, lay people that are witnessing, apostles are witnessing his rise and worshiping him.

And there's mountains and there's colors and there's bones. But those to me are just artistic details. But there's so much, like every single piece of this serves a purpose. Everything has meaning here.

Let's start with Christ descending into Hades. So we have Christ at the center. But this is, would you say him descending into Hades?

Actually, I would say it's the opposite. I'd say it's him coming out because the words at the top, he anastasis, it's Greek. It means the resurrection. So this is the coming of Christ out of the tomb and coming out of Hades or Sheol.

And he is robed, you're right, he is robed in white, which is a color of purity and light and of holiness. Behind him is that oval lozenge that's kind of blue. That is what's called a mandala or a mandorla.

What it is, he's got rays of light shining out. Those are rays of uncreated light. That is the light of the divinity of Christ. So the full radiance of his divine nature is being shown, radiating out from his humanity here.

And if you want a little deeper reason for the mandala being lozenge shaped, because if you take, it's like a Venn diagram. If you take two circles and you overlap them a little bit, you get that lozenge shaped in between.

OK, that's Christ's divinity and his humanity, where they overlap or divinity and humanity overlap, you get that lozenge shape.

So it's like the divinity and the humanity are both there.

So the $10 word is theandric reality, divine human reality here. So Christ is a man rising out of the grave. Underneath his feet are the two bronze doors that were the bronze gates of Hades. You remember, you made reference to Psalm 22, I think, in the show notes, be lifted up, your eternal gates, your eternal doors be lifted up.

You know, who is this? This is the king of glory. The king of glory enters. OK, so the king of glory has entered into the through the gates of Hades and broken them open. He's in fact, torn them off their hinges.

And thrown them down. So is that supposed to symbolize the overcoming of Hades, that he took the doors off the hinges on the entrance to it? Whereas what about all these these bones, these bones in this blackness?

OK, those are those are not actually bones down there. What those are are locks and keys and chains and shackles. That's everybody who was chained up in death. All of those have been broken loose and the keys of Hades have been thrown down or down there somewhere, I'm sure.

So all of the bonds that held us in death, all of the bonds of sin and death. Have been broken loose from us. OK, he's standing on the door on top of him and he's standing on the doors on top of the doors.

Because they're broken down and the dark figure at the bottom, who's all tied up. That is either Hades or death down there. Oh, what? Yeah. Let's see if this can let's either that's either death or hell himself.

Sometimes the devil, I have never imagined it's not letting me zoom in. I've never imagined hell or death itself being a human. I thought, so is this like Satan, this is Satan hogtied at the bottom.

Yeah. Or death or Hades itself. It's just a personification of what it is.

Is there like a cultural relevance at that time of like death looked like being tied up in this way or, you know, we can like, what is that? That is like it looks like a guy. No, it's just a guy.

He's a little dark. Yeah. But there he is down there at the bottom. And who would have been bound? Satan himself. Remember in Book of Revelation, Satan was bound for a thousand years, it says in.

Revelation. Oh, I didn't actually know that. Probably the devil being bound. OK, there he is. Oh, it looks like there's some writing underneath the doors. Do we know what that says?

Oh, yes. It says Kerebranu and it's actually says by the hand of the of the painter of the icon in the year that he painted it. Oh, that we can actually that we can actually ignore. OK, but most iconographers don't sign their work.

But if they do, it's that's kind of a standard format for it.

Adam, Eve, and the Representatives of Humanity

OK. Yeah. So I kind of mentioned this when I was interpreting was it looks like some people in the surrounding area were amazed by what Jesus did and now they're worshiping him. Who are these guys? The man and the woman, the woman in red and the man with the blue sleeve.

Yeah, these are Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve are keep popping up, they seem to be in every icon.

Well, because they represent the fullness of humanity. They're our first parents. So in Adam and Eve, they represent each one of us collectively, all of humanity together and each of us individually as well.

And what Christ is doing is since they were the first ones to disobey, you know, and Abel was the first to die. I don't see Abel in this particular icon. Oh, yes, he is. He's the first figure to the right with the shepherd's staff.

That's Abel. OK. Oh, so he's the first one to die. This is Abel? That's Abel, killed by Cain, the first human to die.

Why is it important that Abel is here? Because he's the first to die. He's been there the longest.

Oh, interesting. And the two down figure coming out of their tombs are Adam and Eve as our first parents. So they represent all of humanity. So we don't have an icon filled with billions of people. They are represented here.

And notice the way that Christ, this is important, zoom in on their hands where Christ is grabbing hold of them. Do you see the way he has them? He's yanking them. He has them by the wrist. You see, if it was by hands or if they were mutual like this, then it would show that Adam and Eve had some power to pull themselves out of hell.

You know, Christ grabs them by the wrist. It's all his effort. They are powerless to do anything. Oh, my gosh. They can't save themselves. So Christ saves them. So even in that detail, the way he grabs them shows he's the active agent.

They are passive, being pulled out of their graves by their Lord and Savior.

Oh, my gosh, the details in this. Oh, boy, it gets better.

Oh, because especially in the case of Eve. He is grabbing her by the same hand with which she reached out to take the forbidden fruit. How do you know that? I just told you so. And I trust you. And I trust you.

Yeah, this is Eve. Go back to the go back to the story. She reached out her hand and she took the fruit. OK, so we're just saying the same hand that reached out to disobey is the same hand by which Christ has saved her.

And that, yeah, well, it looks like she's got a blue sleeve on. Is there a significance with Adam's blue sleeve?

I don't know quite why there's blue there. Very often I know Eve is wearing all red because red is the color of blood. It's the color of humanity. So, you know, it's sort of emphasizing a bit that she's the mother of all.

As Genesis says, she's the mother of all the living. Yeah. Wow. So there's Adam and Eve. They're being pulled out of being pulled out of the graves and with them, all of the rest of us, the rest of the figures in the background starting on the far left would be King David.

Oh, geez. They got two crowns. Everybody's here. Yeah. So you got King David over there.

Yeah. Hard to zoom in on this thing.

Yeah. And next to him, you have Solomon. And next to him, you have John the Baptist. Because like I say, he went down to preach Christ to those dead. And then the first one to the right, I've already said is Abel because he's got a shepherd's staff.

Oh, yeah. And or I may be mistaken. Let me hold that very lightly, because very often prophets are shown there. So I imagine you have Ezekiel and Elijah are the two older men. It might be one of the younger prophets who might be there.

So don't don't don't put me on on on that one. But I think it's likely Aiden. Because he was young when he died, and this is clearly a young man.

Oh, you're saying this might be Abel or might be like Elisha or Elijah?

Yeah. No, it wouldn't be Elijah, because Elijah always looks like John the Baptist. You know, white hair, wild, kind of a wild man. And he would have on, you know, the the the hairy tunic, you know, that he had the mantle that he dropped for Elisha when he ascended in the fiery chariot.

And it will not be Elijah because the Elijah went up to heaven in the fiery chariot and tradition has it that he did not die. So he would not be in Hades.