Dead, Buried, Descended

                 

Twenty-first after Trinity

Collect: Grant, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Text: I believe in Jesus Christ who was...dead and buried. He descended into hell.

One of my favorite movies is “What about Bob?” It’s a story about a psychiatrist, his wife and two children, and a neurotic patient named Bob. There is a scene in which the psychiatrist’s little boy, Sigmund, is talking to the patient, Bob. Sigmund, who is 8 or 9 years old, asks, “Bob? are you afraid of death?” “Yeah,” says Bob. The little boy replies, “Me, too. There’s no way out of it.  You’re going to die.  I’m going to die.  It’s going to happen.  And what difference does it make if it’s tomorrow or 80 years? Do you know how fast time goes?  I was 6 like yesterday.” He goes on, “I’m going to die.  You’re going to die.  What else is there to be afraid of?”

1. Christ’s Death and Burial

We might wonder why the creed included that Christ died and was buried. It is because, according to St. Paul, these two facts are part of the Gospel. Paul reminds the Corinthian church of the Gospel he preached to them and by which they are being saved: “For I delivered unto you as of first importance that which I received: that Christ Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures and was buried.” Why are the death and burial of Jesus essential to the Gospel?

1.1 Dead. The Gospel writers are careful to record the death of Jesus. According to St. Mark, “Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last” (15:37). He said two things with that loud cry. First, “It is finished” (John 19:30). He meant not, “I am finished,” but “The work of salvation the Father gave me to do, is finished.” Then he said, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Having arrived at the moment of death, Jesus entrusted his human spirit to the God who gave it. These words of Jesus were remembered by the early church, so that Stephen, the first martyr, when he was dying, entrusted himself to Jesus, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59).

As sunset on Friday neared and the Passover Sabbath was soon to begin, the Jewish leaders became concerned that the bodies would remain on their crosses on the Sabbath. So they went to Pilate and asked that the legs of the crucified men be broken. This would make it impossible for the men to lift their bodies to breathe and so would hasten their deaths. Pilate agreed and ordered the soldiers to break the legs of the crucified men. They broke the legs of the men crucified with Jesus, but when they came to Jesus they found that “he was already dead,” so “they did not break his legs.” But one of the soldiers, wanting to be sure, “pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out water and blood.” Jesus was dead. His respiration had ceased. His heart had stopped beating. His brain waves had gone flat. Jesus was dead beyond all doubt.

Buried. All four Gospels also record the burial of Jesus. A rich man named Joseph from the town of Arimathea got up the courage to go to Pilate and ask that he be given custody of Jesus’ body. The Gospels tell us Joseph was “a good and righteous man” who was “looking for the kingdom of God.” He was a “respected member of the council” (the Sanhedrin) who “had not consented to their decision and action.” He was a disciple of Jesus but in secret because he feared the Jews. Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus was already dead, so he asked, and a centurion affirmed that Jesus was dead. So Pilate told Joseph he could have the body.

Joseph took custody of the body. He was accompanied by another secret disciple, Nicodemus, who earlier had gone to Jesus by night. St. John tells us, “So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid” (John 19:40-41). When the burial was complete, Joseph rolled a stone in front of the tomb. There was no sign of life in the body of Jesus. He was dead and buried.

1.3. Why did Paul say the death and burial of Jesus were part of the Gospel delivered to him by Christ and which he preached? Why are the Gospel writers so careful to record both the facts and evidence for Jesus’ death and burial? Because the death of Christ is necessary for our salvation.

God had warned Adam and Eve, who not only were the first humans, but also represented the whole human race, that, if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die (Genesis 2:17). The prophet Ezekiel warned, “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). St. Paul wrote, “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Death is universal because sin is universal. The fact that Jesus died and was buried means he has paid in full the penalty of our sins. There is nothing left for him or for us to do. Our sins are forgiven for Jesus died for them.

That Jesus died and was buried means that Jesus has been through what most fear most. He has fully experienced death, death worse than ours, for he died experiencing the penalty of sin that he might remove death’s sting for us. His body was buried where he awaited his own resurrection as we await ours when our bodies are laid in their graves.

2. Christ’s Descent into Hell

“He descended into hell” is by far the most difficult statement in the Creed. When I learned the Creed as a child, we did not say “he descended into hell.” Later a new minister got it added and so I learned to say the sentence. The reasons that some churches do not include “he descended into hell” are because the sentence was not a part of the earliest form of the Creed, and more important, because there has been uncertainty as to what it means.

One thing we know for sure is that is does not mean that Christ after death went to the place of punishment reserved for the unrepentant. He did not go to hell to suffer the rejection and wrath of God. The sufferings of Jesus were complete when he died. There was nothing more to be done for our salvation.

One important thing to know is that the Greek word in the Creed is “hades.” There is another Greek word “gehenna” which  means what we mean when we say “hell” - eternal punishment. The word “hades” means the same as the Old Testament word “sheol” which means “the place (or realm) of the dead.” If you go to one of our sister congregations in the Anglican Church in North America, you may find that they say, “he descended to the dead.” This is not a matter of not wanting to say what the Creed actually says but of saying what the Creed means by hell or hades.

That leaves us with the question, “What does it mean that he descended to hell or hades or the realm of the dead?” The 39 Articles don’t help, saying, “As Christ died for us, and was buried; so also it is, to be believed that he went down into Hell.”  What does it mean?” Actually there have been a variety of answers. There are two main ones given by evangelical Anglicans. I will tell you about two them.

Dr. J.I. Packer, now in his 90s, a man God has used greatly winsomely to defend and teach Protestant Anglicanism says: “First by his presence he made Hades into Paradise...for the penitent thief and presumably all those who died trusting him during his earthly ministry, just as he does now for the faithful departed. Second he perfected the spirits of the Old Testament    

believers bringing them out of the gloom (of) Sheol into this same Paradise...This is the core truth of the Medieval fantasies of ‘the harrowing of hell.’ Thirdly, he ‘made proclamation’...of his kingdom and appointment as the world’s judge...to the imprisoned spirits who had rebelled in antediluvian times (presumably the fallen angels…).”

The other Anglican is Dr. Alistair McGrath of Oxford who says, “(He descended to the dead) is a statement of belief that Jesus really did die….Jesus shared the fate of all those who have died...Being God incarnate did not mean he was spared from tasting death. He did not merely seem to die; he really did die and joined those who had died before him.”

These two understandings show the difficulty of the statement, but do not question that it should be included in the Creed. They are nothing to fight about.

The important thing for us is this. The fate of Jesus is the fate of all who die believing in him. He died and was buried. He met the repentant thief in Paradise, a place of blessedness and happiness. On the third day he rose. The little boy was right. We are going to die. Our bodies will rest in peace. Our spirits will be with Jesus. And on the great Day to come we will rise to glory.