The Brew: When He Rose, He Harrowed Hell. Let’s Go and Do Likewise
The ancient Easter Vigil liturgy proclaims, each year:
Exult, let them exult, the hosts of heaven,
exult, let Angel ministers of God exult,
let the trumpet of salvation
sound aloud our mighty King’s triumph!Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her,
ablaze with light from her eternal King,
let all corners of the earth be glad,
knowing an end to gloom and darkness.Rejoice, let Mother Church also rejoice,
arrayed with the lightning of his glory,
let this holy building shake with joy,
filled with the mighty voices of the peoples.
How can we carry the Easter spirit all through the year, through every corner of our lives and the public square? In part by remembering what Jesus accomplished in His journey through death back to new, resurrected, and glorified life. As Mel Gibson plans to depict in his long-awaited sequel to The Passion of the Christ, Jesus “harrowed Hell.”
He descended into the underworld where the patriarchs and prophets, Maccabees and martyrs, Jewish saints and righteous Gentiles such as Melchizadech waited in shadows for the One who would break Adam’s curse. Church fathers speculated that the demons fled in terror, howled in anguish, and cowered in disbelief that their great victory — Jesus’s judicial murder — had blown up in their faces. Christ hadn’t been conquered by death, but had conquered death by death, and to those in the tombs bestowed new life.
Why Did Jesus Spend 40 Days on Earth?
And here’s the really interesting, counterintuitive part: He came back to walk the earth. He ate with the apostles, let one of them probe His wounds, and spent some 40 days appearing to them in His glorified body — which was material and tangible, but not bound by the ordinary laws of physics. He came in part to offer them a foretaste of what was coming, which was in fact the whole telos of Creation: a new Heaven and a new Earth, remade without blot or blemish.
He didn’t have to do that. Jesus could have risen from the tomb, made one appearance before many thousands in Jerusalem, then ascended into Heaven at high noon on the Temple Mount if all He’d been trying to do was assert His authenticity and divinity. That’s the kind of miracle the Muslims attribute to Muhammad. It’s what mere humans making up a story about a “prophet” would come up with.
But Jesus returned and enjoyed the human company of His friends. (See the wonderful Easter movie Risen for depictions of those joyous reunions.)
He continued to teach them. He made it clear that the earth itself, this mortal life, has enduring value. It’s not just an ugly dream we’re waiting to wake up from. He promised them the Comforter, the Spirit who would bolster them and help them spread His message to every corner of the earth — to build up His Kingdom not just in each individual heart, but in every family, city, and nation.
We Must Harrow Hell
And that is what we must do, right here and now, in our troubled culture and country. We must restore common sense, enforce the Natural Law, and protect our basic freedoms — all of which is predicated on maintaining public order, defending private property, and guarding national borders. To accomplish any of that, we’ll have to confront those who are deluded, lost, or under the full sway of the Enemy.
We must harrow Hell and send its minions cowering. And that’s why we must be resilient, courageous citizens willing to speak truth to power, whether it’s wielded by the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the FBI, social media giants, corrupted church leaders or prestigious Ivy League “experts.” For now, thanks to multiple miracles, we see some of Caesar’s power actually being wielded justly and rightly. Let’s thank Caesar when he acts rightly, and correct him when he stumbles as we try to preserve the foundations for the City on a Hill which the King will return one day to reign over.
In that light cast from eternity, let’s view the events of the day as what they finally are: spiritual warfare, waged here in the flesh by soldier, lawyer, and citizen. When we see something to celebrate, best not to think, “We are winning,” or “Trump is winning” or even “The country is winning.” No, whenever injustice is righted, the innocent are protected, and evildoers are punished … He is winning. His victory of Easter is being cemented and affirmed. The cornerstones are falling into place, for the glory He has promised, right here on Earth in His Kingdom.
How to Pray for Enemies
Jesus commanded us to pray for our enemies — presumably the personal enemies who make our lives difficult, maybe even dangerous. But how are we to pray for His enemies — those who sow evil in the hearts of the young, who persecute the guiltless and profit from pandemics? Intercessors for America offers a long, insightful meditation on this subject. Here are just a few excerpts to get you thinking and praying:
We ask You, Father, first and foremost, that if there are any unrighteous politicians in America who can still be saved — from the local town level to the highest levels of government — we ask You to save them:
Wake up their consciences to see the horrors of every sin they are involved in or perpetuating.
Convict them of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
Show them Jesus so clearly that they cannot deny He exists.
Let them have a holy terror when they see Jesus. Reinforce to them that judgment is coming if they are not clothed in the white robes of righteousness, washed and forgiven by Your grace through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Let them experience a holy horror at what they have done and are doing.
Grant them a deep, heartfelt, gut-level, transformational REPENTANCE, and turn them around to go after the righteousness of Christ.
Help them bend the knee to Jesus, making Him the Lord and Savior of their lives!
Help them then to make right everything they have done that was wrong; help them to mend, restore, and rectify every evil they have perpetuated against the American people at any level!
The essay is well worth reading in full.
Sending Outlaws Back Home
Gateway Pundit reports on one little victory, a microcosm of the sanity and order which the Trump team is trying to restore to our country’s lawless borders and cheapened citizenship:
Someone find the world’s smallest violin.
An illegal alien and an alleged Tren de Aragua gangster broke down like a baby being arrested in connection with a violent liquor store robbery spree across central Florida, authorities said.
Ramon Jesus Carpintero-Luna, 26, was caught alongside four other suspects tied to a series of armed heists that targeted more than 30 liquor stores, netting an estimated $30,000 in stolen goods. …
When confronted by law enforcement, Carpintero-Luna, a Venezuelan national who entered the country illegally, reportedly fell to his knees, begging officers to let him go.
Detectives said he wept uncontrollably while in handcuffs, seemingly overwhelmed by the realization that his crime spree had come to an end.
The New George Floyd, MS-13 ‘Martyr’ Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Sees His Halo Tarnish
There’s a complex legal battle over whether the Trump administration was justified in removing a gang-affiliated illegal alien, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to El Salvador. Sen. Chris van Hollen (D-Md.), who did nothing for January 6 protestors or the families of the victims raped or murdered by illegal aliens in his state, flew down to El Salvador to commiserate with Garcia. The Left has clearly decided to make this gangbanger its poster child for “the rule of law.”
Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, is doing the rounds in the media, pleading his case. But her story doesn’t quite hang together, as this interview makes clear. The ABC reporter asks her why, if Garcia is such a model, law-abiding noncitizen, she filed a restraining order against him because of domestic violence in 2021. Did she fear he might hurt or kill her? Listen to her explanation: “My husband is alive. That’s all I can say.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife freezes and refuses to answer why she asked for a protective order against him in 2021 pic.twitter.com/CZlILNvZQz
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 18, 2025
The reporter doesn’t press her. He seems to realize that he wasn’t supposed to ask such a question, and appears to be wondering if he just put his job in danger by actually doing it.
The 250th Anniversary of the Shot Heard Around the World
Too few remember it today, but the American War of Independence began with a battle over gun rights. As I document in No Second Amendment, No First, citizens militias had been gathering for more than 100 years at local churches for spiritual uplift and target practice, then defending their communities from invasion.
In 1775, the British Crown saw those militias as a threat to its plan to crack down on the Colonies and limit their self-government. In late April that year, the Boston-area militias learned that the royal governor planned to seize their powder and ammunition — and they mustered to protect their means of self-defense. What resulted were the battles of Lexington and Concord, which launched the U.S. on the road to full independence. The White House has been circulating an uplifting video to commemorate that occasion in a fitting launch to the country’s 250-year anniversary celebration next year.
Can you imagine how we’d have marked the event under a President Kamala Harris? Maybe with sackcloth and ashes, and reparations imposed on descendants of every white American whose family arrived before 1965.
The Supreme Court Issues Bizarre, Late-Night Order Rebuking Trump
The Conservative Treehouse reports:
At 1:00am on Saturday, the Supreme Court of the USA issued an injunction [SEE HERE] blocking President Trump from deporting illegal aliens identified under the Alien Enemies Act. It was/is a bizarre order considering the lower court had not even ruled on the matter; worse yet, the Supreme Court created an imaginary “class” of aliens.
Any illegal alien who happens to also be a gang member, or illegal alien who would ‘smartly’ now claim to be a gang member, is ultimately the beneficiary of a Supreme Court order blocking their removal or deportation. That’s how judicially insane this injunction is.
Read Justice Samuel Alito’s scathing dissent from the order here.
The moment is fast approaching when President Trump will have to follow the example of President Andrew Jackson, who is said to have responded to judicial micromanagement with this deathless phrase: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
The remedy to a president allegedly overreaching his powers is not for judges to step in and seize the authority of the executive branch of government. It is for Congress to impeach and remove the president. Likewise, the remedy for judges who overreach their powers is also impeachment and removal. Since the votes don’t exist for either the impeachment of Trump or of multiple Supreme Court justices, the remedy must be political. Trump must defy the court, and face the judgment of voters in the upcoming mid-term elections. Voters who believed the media when they report that Trump is acting like a dictator could vote in sufficient Democrats or RINOs to get Trump removed. That’s how things work in a democracy, where the people rule, instead of appointed judges with lifetime terms.
Or Trump could just cave to the courts, fail to fulfill his key campaign promises, and waddle through the rest of his term as the lamest duck since President James Buchanan in 1859. Then, once he was out of office, he could face the prison terms which corrupt prosecutors have promised to ram through biased juries in blue cities. That would be the grimmest third act in history since Judas ran off to hang himself.
Along The Stream…
Later this morning, don’t miss William Briggs’s thoughtful piece on the promise and menace of artificial intelligence.
Looking for hope? Lorenzo Sewell, pastor of 180 Church in Detroit, knows where to find it. Watch his interview with Life Today host James Robison on reaching people for Christ — from the downtrodden in the inner cities to the elites in the nation’s capital.
John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.