Day 89: Jesus Christ Was Buried

"By the grace of God," Jesus tasted death "for everyone". In his plan of salvation, God ordained that his Son should not only "die for our sins" but should also "taste death", experience the condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time he was raised from the dead. the state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb, reveals God's great sabbath rest after the fulfillment of man's salvation, which brings peace to the whole universe. CCC 624

In today's reading, the Catechism speaks about the burial of Jesus after His death on the cross. Death is something that awaits all of us, but I cannot imagine what Jesus underwent through the experience. I had not even considered that while His human body was separated from His soul, which occurs at death, "both remained with one and the same person of the Word" (CCC 626). This must have been some kind of agony for Him that we'll never fully understand. For three days He lay in the tomb, as He foretold with the sign of Jonah. Yet while He suffered death, God preserved His human body from decay during that time (Acts 2:26-27). 

That real death and burial of Jesus is a sign for us in baptism. As the Catholic Companion, Vol I states:

In Baptism, being immersed in water three times is a sign of Christ's descent into the earth for three days. In the sacrament, the Christian dies to sin with Christ to live a new life. As Jesus descended into death, we who are baptized descend into his death too. We enter in his death and rise to new life with him (p. 182)

Wall mosaic of the entombment of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre