DESCENDED INTO HELL

HE DESCENDED INTO HELL

            It all began in the villages and townships of Palestine where the outposts of satanic empire were well established. These outposts of satanic empire were attacked and overwhelmed by the man from Nazareth. But before evil could be finally defeated, he had to meet the total force of its legions and penetrate right into the destructive heart of its purposes and power. This he did on Calvary. (John Calvin interpreted the phrase of the Apostles’ Creed, “He descended into hell,” as describing not some underworld journey that Jesus took after his death but rather the deadly depths of his suffering on the Cross.)

All hell was there that day in the excruciating pain that the Lord suffered, in his rejection by his people and his desertion by his disciples, in the black spiritual abandonment that made him cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15,34). Here the whole mystery of evil hurtled itself against him through its human agents. Sin, death and hell fell upon him in consuming fury. There was no weapon in his armoury that Satan did not deploy against the Son of God, son of Mary.

If all hell was there that day on Calvary, it was only to be defeated, when the man on the Cross, despite the very worst that the devil could do to him, rose from the dead. His Resurrection was the first fruit of his victory, the like of which the world had never known, the certifying sign that the victim has conquered, the oppressed has subdued his oppressors; what was in him was mightier than what was in them. The Son of God had assumed our human nature that was heavily marked by sin; but when he died our sins were destroyed and our nature renewed.

            The last word is not with evil but with goodness, not with hell but with heaven, not with death but with life. Without the Resurrection we would still remain in Holy Saturday despair. The fruits of victory begin to be gathered on Easter morning, but the battle was fought and the victory won on the Cross.

            From now on, what we used to call “HELL” stands for the isolation of the sinner, total death. But there is precisely where the Son of God descended. And do you know what that means? It means that whatsoever your sin and shame God will not leave you in isolation. Our ‘hell’ has been invaded by Jesus. He breaks our shackles and calls us out with a loud victorious voice like he did when he summoned Lazarus from the tomb.

            At his death the victorious Christ entered the heart of the earth and turned it inside out. The Gospel declares: the earth shook, the boulders split and graves vomited their dead people who walked among the living in towns and villages. A terrifying scene, unless you want to believe that some strange and hitherto unknown power had entered the heart of reality and taken absolute possession from within. Let this transcendent power take possession of you from within, shake you like an earthquake from within and open you to newness of life in Christ.

INVOCATION  (Janet Morley)

May the God who shakes heaven and earth,

whom death could not contain,

who lives to disturb and heal us,

bless you with power to go forth

and proclaim the Gospel.