Writings: He Descended to the Dead

By: Dr. Gregory S. Neal

When I was a kid, I attended Mrs. Hill’s Sunday School class at Walnut Hill United Methodist Church. Mrs. Hill was a wonderful woman; to me she was super-tall – of course, when I was a child all adults looked super-tall because I was super-short – but my fondest memories of her are of when she smiled down at me, her face alight with kindness, patience, and love. I can remember sitting in her class, drawing the church with crayons on construction paper and giving it to her, and how impressed she was at my masterpiece. When I got too rambunctious, she was gracious and patient and knew how to rein me in with just a single word. To put it simply, during my childhood years Mrs. Hill embodied what the church was for me; and, of course, it wasn’t lost on me that Mrs. Hill and my church I had the same last name: Mrs. Hill ... Walnut Hill. Imaginative kids, like me, can oftentimes draw some funny conclusions from similarities like that, and I certainly did.
Mrs. Hill taught me so much. She taught me to pray the Lord’s Prayer; she also taught me how to bow my head, fold my hands, keel at the altar rail, and be quiet inside. I was good at all the outward, physical stuff, but not so good at the inward, silent stuff. I could bow like that for about 10 seconds, but then my mind would launch out on rabbit trails, and my body would soon want to follow. Mrs. Hill taught me the “Zacchaeus was a wee little man” song. I can remember singing it loudly while playing outside on the swing set or running around inside the house; I think I drove my parents crazy singing that song all day long. Mrs. Hill also taught me to sing the Gloria Patri and the Doxology, and I remember how she beamed with pleasure when I thought the words were: “praise him all preachers here below,” and then laughed when I drew a picture of all the alien “creatures” that were actually supposed to be praising God. She taught me about Holy Communion: that it shows us how much Jesus loves us and wants to grow up big and strong; she also taught me how to receive Communion by holding my hands out, palms up, to receive the bread. I even remember the Graham crackers and fruit punch that she had us practice with, and of how I told her that the Graham crackers tasted better than the stale wafers and grape juice that they served in worship.

One of my fondest memories from her class was her teaching us the Apostles’ Creed. For some reason, the version we used was not the traditional one at 881 in our current Hymnal; it was identical to it in every respect save one: it added that
Jesus “descended into Hell.” Needless to say, for a kid who had been told to never say “Hell,” getting to say it in the Creed ... and in Church, no less ... was a great deal of fun! I think I over-emphasized saying it because mom kept reminding me that those words were supposed to be quietly said, not shouted. Several years later, after a change in Pastors, they began leaving out that phrase and I thought it was funny when people would still say it, and then stumble over themselves trying to catch back up to everybody else. I remember snickering to my friend, Brett, about how “Hell caught everybody by surprise.”

So, what does the phrase: “He descended to the dead” actually mean? It’s found in the Ecumenical Version of the Apostles’ Creed at 882 in our Hymnal and is an updated way of saying that Jesus “descended into hell,” as it is found in the older Methodist, Anglican, and Catholic versions of this historic Affirmation of Faith. But what does it mean, and where does it come from? Like the rest of the Apostles’ Creed, this element of the Affirmation is found in scripture at 1 Peter 318-20:
"For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark."

The “spirits in prison” are those who lived prior to the time of Jesus: for example, those who lived prior to and during Noah’s days, as well as those who lived after Noah and all the way up to Jesus’ day. The “prison” mentioned here is Sheol, which is the abode of the dead in the Hebrew Bible where people “sleep with their ancestors.” This passage teaches us that Jesus “descended to the dead,” in Sheol, in order to proclaim the Good News to all those who died prior to his life, death, and resurrection. In a true sense, Jesus “flung open wide the Gates of Hell” for David and Solomon, Ruth and Naomi, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Sarah and Rebekah, Joshua and Aaron, Abraham and Isaac, Adam and Eve, and all the rest, bringing them with him to glory everlasting. This is the basis upon which the tombs of the righteous are opened at Jesus’ death on the cross in Matthew’s Gospel, one of the most perplexing passages in the entire New Testament. The idea is that, just because someone lived before Jesus, or never had an opportunity to hear the Gospel, isn’t a reason why they couldn’t possibly be in heaven. There are several other Old Testament passages that reference this truth in other ways, but this is yet another way of talking about it.

Another phrase this reading also captured my attention. At the very being of the passage it reads:

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. (1 Peter 3:18)

This passage affirms that the nature of Jesus’ sacrifice – his gracious giving of himself through his incantation and birth, his life and ministry, his suffering and death – was enough for us all. And notice who he suffered for: if Jesus is your savior, if Jesus is your Lord, if Jesus is your brother and friend, if Jesus does anything for you at all, then you are among the unrighteous for whom he died. Some of us don’t like that: we don’t like to admit that’s we’re not righteous, that we’re not perfect, that we fail God and fail our neighbor, that we sin. But we do. We are very much the unrighteous for whom Jesus suffered and died; and that, paradoxically my friends, is good news! Indeed, it’s the Good News. Because we are unrighteous and are suffering, in need of a savior, Jesus, the righteous one, suffered for us all. Christ’s sacrifice is all powerful, perfect, eternal, and once for all. It does not need to be repeated, unlike all other sacrifices; his sacrifice was enough. Now, we do have to be repeatedly reminded of Christ’s sacrifice and reconnected to it through all the many means of grace: by offering our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, by prayer and worship and giving and serving, by remembering our baptisms and receiving Holy Communion. We must be reconnected to Christ’s suffering through our acts of faith.

Lent is the season of the Church year in which we come to terms with our nature, not as good Christians, not as “good enough to get by,” not as “needing to work on it, but doing better day by day,” but as the unrighteous, in need of a redeemer. There are many spiritual exercises that can be helpful in this journey, one of which being a daily confession of sin to Jesus. How often have you done that? I would venture to guess that most of us don’t do it every day, but we should. It doesn’t need to be fancy; you don’t have to use a fixed, written prayer. It’s sufficient to simply say to Jesus, at the close of each day:

“Today, I failed ... in this way.”
“Today, I yelled at my loved one.”
“Today, I wasn’t fair with my kids.”
“Today, I ignored the needs of others.”
“Today, I didn’t take care of myself.”
“Today, I failed to thank you at all.”
“Today, I failed to pray at all.”
“... please, forgive me.”

Tonight, as you get ready for bed – as you wash your face and brush your teeth – I want you to take a moment to look at yourself in the mirror and think about something that you failed to do today, or something that you did that you shouldn’t have done. It can be big and important, or it can be small and almost insignificant. I remember the scene in the movie "Agnes of God," in which the young nun confesses to her priest: “I didn’t eat all my lima beans.” Yes, we all fail to love God and our neighbor, in big and small ways, every day. While getting ready for bed tonight, and every night during Lent, I want you to look at yourself in the mirror, be honest with yourself, and then confess to God those sins that have hurt yourself, others, and your relationship with God. When you do so, hand them over to God and commit yourself to trusting in God’s forgiveness while trying to do better tomorrow.

It’s a small discipline ... not just for Lent, but for your whole life; Lent is a good time to start. It’s a small discipline, intended not to make you feel bad about yourself but to help you identify those things in yourself that cause problems in your relationship with others, and in your relationship with God. I offer it to you throughout this season of Lent.

© 2021 Dr. Gregory S. Neal
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