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He descended into hell...
We are living through the Lenten season now as I remember that line from the Apostles’ Creed. It’s an affirmation of our faith that describes Jesus’ activity after he was “crucified, dead, and buried.” Next, the creed affirms, “he descended into hell.” While the origins of the Apostles’ Creed are murky, it can be said that it brings into focus what the earliest Christians came to believe about Jesus.
“He descended into hell.” It’s been a controversial concept and lots of religious thinkers have argued whether it should be in there at all. What could it mean? That Jesus visited the non-Christian ancestors of the faith to usher them to heaven? To subdue Satan and his minions? To rescue the “good thief” on the cross? To suffer spiritually for us? I will leave that kind of sorting out to others.
I can’t help but think of that sentence in times of tragedy. It rises in my thoughts now as I listen to coverage of disasters around the world or in our own country. When it seems difficult to find God in horrible situations, in the world or in my own life, I try to remember that Jesus descended into hell.
There are times when we all have been in some kind of hell. The list of possible hells we experience is virtually endless. You know what they are. You’ve been in them. Maybe you are in one today as you read this.
It is crucial for me to know that Jesus descended into hell. It is crucial, not because I have a well worked-out theological understanding of the phrase, but because I know Jesus descends with me into whatever Hell I’m in. There’s a kind of solidarity about this. Jesus, in some way, knows what hell is like. He knows what we suffer. More than that, he descends into hell, over and over, to be with us in our suffering.
He descended into hell...
That’s what I need to know today.
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