In the Presbyterian Church of my childhood and youth out there in Pittsburgh, I grew up singing from the red hymnbook published in 1955 and edited by David Hugh Jones. I’m actually speaking rather literally when I say that “I grew up singing from the hymnbook.” My memories of it run deep. Hymn #1 is “Praise Ye The Lord, the Almighty the King of Creation.” Hymn #2 is “For the Beauty of the Earth”. Advent comes in the 140's. Easter is right around 200. The congregation I served down in South Jersey used the red hymnbook. I grew up there singing from that hymnbook. I will always remember there on one of the front pages, before the hymns even start, there are some prayers listed, and the creeds, Nicene and Apostles’. In the printed version of the Apostles’ Creed there is an asterisk with a footnote. It comes right after the phrase, “He descended into hell.” The annotation reads, “some churches omit this.” “He descended into hell.” Some churches omit this.

Several years ago I listened to a student’s sermon prior to his preaching it on a Sunday morning in the congregation where he was doing his field work. While I don’t remember the exact words he used, at some point in his sermon he mentioned that God did not abandon Jesus on the cross. As we talked about the sermon afterward I said something like “but you know that’s exactly what God did, God abandoned Jesus on the cross.” We talked about what the tradition labels the cry of dereliction, “My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?” Our conversation lasted for awhile, became a bit animated. The student disagreed with me, held his own preaching ground and didn’t change a word of the sermon. We were arguing about “he descended into hell.” Some churches omit this.

One preacher describes the reaction from a member of the congregation when the subject came up. “My Jesus did not descend into hell!” Of course that preacher is every preacher, and every congregation includes those who would firmly hold to what that member said. Jesus, “God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.” This same Jesus who was tempted in every way, yet was without sin, could not in any way, shape, or form, experience the burning, wrath-filled, depths of eternal punishment and damnation. “My Jesus did not descend into hell!” (Note to preacher self: remember for another sermon- for claiming Christ as “my Jesus” is much more troubling than wrestling with whether or not Jesus plunged into hell.) My hunch is that every Sunday morning in a typical congregation like this one, when the Creed is said and we get to “he descended into hell”, some parts of the church omit this. A tainted creedal affirmation forever listed in the record book with an asterisk, at least in the red hymnbook.

Speaking of a hymnbook, the psalmist is singing this morning. The familiar text of Psalm 23. We have spoken in unison and we have sung. The words of Psalm 139 that I read to you just a moment ago. These words and images and affirmations of the psalmist, the memories run deep for people of faith, very deep. “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me fast.” And few chords strike deeper than this one, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” I grew up singing from that hymnbook, too. Walking through the valley of the shadow of death thou are with me. Making my bed in Sheol, thou art there with me. No churches omitting here! Psalm 23. Psalm 139. No asterisk here.

My own teacher James Kay, has written a very helpful essay that rehearses just a bit of the history of Christian thought on the phrase “He descended into hell.” Professor Kay points out a reason that might be added to the asterisk file on the creed. For this descension clause was a late edition when the creed was being formed. Hell never made it into the drafts of the early centuries of the baptismal creed. Kay suggests that “hell enters the creed” as an exclamation point on the death of Jesus. He was dead, really dead. He went to Sheol. The place of the dead. He was dead and buried and descended into hell. It is like the church fathers affirming he was dead, dead, dead. DEAD. DEAD. DEAD. DEAD. You can guess the logic here. A strong proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is rather dependent upon the certainty of his death, made ever more certain by underlining his dwelling place there among the dead, there in Sheol.

Like the man I mentioned above who told the preacher he couldn’t settle for Jesus and hell, I bet every congregation includes a searching and inquiring member who has read a little ahead in the Year of the Bible. So she embodies (in my imagination at least) everyone who has ever asked the pastor for the biblical support for such confession, that Christ descended into hell. “Where does it say in the Bible that he descended into hell?” One answer comes in the Epistle of I Peter 3:18. “Christ was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey.” Christ is the guest preacher in the house of the dead; preaching Good News and liberating those who went to the grave long before. Christ preaching to a captive audience, not simply those who had never heard, but those who had disobeyed, those intended for the wrath of God. Christ descended according to I Peter, in order that the gospel might be proclaimed even to the dead.

My pastoral experience here informs me that many folks listen respectfully to that bit of biblical support from I Peter and squint a bit, maybe cock their head, and then wait for a bit more theological nourishment to chew on, having been left rather unsatisfied by the passing biblical argument. Don’t worry, we’re in good company here. The likes of John Calvin and Martin Luther didn’t appear to be overly excited about I Peter either. For Martin Luther, Christ’s descent was the mental anguish he endured upon the cross, his agony of conscience. To so fully understand the nearness of God and yet to be so far removed from God. Like Luther, John Calvin wasted little time on pondering hell as some place several floors below. Christ’s descent to hell is his suffering there on the cross. The physical suffering on the cross in view of all is combined with an invisible suffering whereby Christ himself endures the torment of condemnation. The one who is without sin experiences the severity of God’s wrath on behalf of sinners all. He descended into hell. It’s not an exclamation point intended to affirm that he really died. It is an arrow that points, not downward, but an arrow that points to what Paul described as the breadth and length and height and depth. He descended into hell. It points to extent of his suffering. It points to the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge. A love and a suffering that, of course, can’t be fully explained.

According to the Reformers, the challenge of wrapping your mind and faith around Christ’s descent to hell comes not in the mythology of space (he plunged the depths), nor in the tyranny of a timeline (Good Friday, Hell on Saturday, Resurrection Sunday), nor in the search for the right biblical proof text (I Peter 3), but in the enormity of the theological point being made. For you cannot fully grapple with salvation’s story, or with Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross, you cannot really work on a theology of death and resurrection weather worn by the experiences and realities of this life, or encounter an honest notion of the suffering that persists in this world, suffering that confounds even the heart of God, you can’t really hear a preacher stand at a memorial service and say that death shall not have the last word here and then listen at the cemetery as she reads from I Corinthians, “Death has been swallowed up in victory. O death where is your victory? O grave where is your sting?”, you cannot fully confront your relationship with a God who walks with you in the valley of the shadow of death and with a God who rests with you when you make your bed in Sheol.... you can’t do it without allowing your heart to be gripped and squeezed by the idea that there at the cross Jesus Christ went straight to hell. As Dr. Kay summarizes Calvin here, “hell in the Creed is defined by the cross of Jesus Christ. Hell is godforsakenness.” Or in Calvin’s own words, “to feel yourself forsaken, and estranged from God, and when you call upon God, not to be heard.” He descended into hell. You can’t omit this!

I grew up singing from that red hymnbook and I grew up singing along with the psalmists. When I was growing up, when I was in third grade, my oldest brother was killed in a car accident. I remember sitting outside in the backyard that spring morning after the news had come, as the pastor came, family arrived, the church gathered. And I remember hearing my mother cry. Her lament went right through the walls of the house and it went for a long time. Years later she told me how angry she would get when people would tell her it must have been God’s will. But she also told me how angry she was at God, how she would have it out with God on her knees, not in prayer at first, but when she was on her knees scrubbing the basement floor. The strokes with a brush became shouts. The cleaning water mixed with tears. I am forever grateful for her honesty of faith, her willingness to show her children something of her relationship to God, for testifying to her encounter with Jesus smack in the midst of her experience of god forsakeneness. For helping me to see what happens when “he descended into hell” and “yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”, to see what happens when those songs meet.

That’s why I say it. When silence falls after the robust theological conversation, when our attempts to figure it all out have finished for yet another day, when this doctrinal sermon comes to close, I will say it. Because it’s part of my growing up faith. “He descended into hell.” I say it “Because I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, not things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, not anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8) Because when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God promises to walk with me. I say it because there is no where I can go to flee from God’s presence. “If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me fast.”

At the end of that essay on this phrase from the creed, Jim Kay concludes, “There is absolutely no possibility for us and for all creation that is beyond the reach of the triune God’s unfathomable, unquenchable, and irresistible love.” I believe that. And so I say “He descended into hell.” And the next time I find myself standing next to a hospital bed when doctor’s reports couldn’t be worse or walking into a living room so full of unspeakable grief or gathering with you here when the world’s reality has come crashing in, the next time you and I, we find ourselves clinging to not much more than this growing up faith....I’m going to read from Romans 8 and I’m going to read Psalm 139 and I’m going to read Psalm 23. Not because it is simply what you do with this office, not because I will have nothing else to say (though that indeed may be true), but we will read it and proclaim it together, because He descended into hell.

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