To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here
Throughout the season of Lent, we’re taking a close look at the Apostles’ Creed – one of the earliest and most concise summaries of what followers of Jesus believe.
There’s a difference between getting over a tragedy and getting through it.
Christian singer and songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman and his family have made it clear they will never get over what happened on May 21, 2008, at their home in Franklin, Tennessee.
Five-year-old Maria was playing with her sisters in the yard when they spotted 17-year-old big brother Will pulling into the driveway. Maria, excited about the possibility of Will helping her climb onto the outdoor monkey bars, ran enthusiastically toward his car. Will, who adored Maria, didn’t see her dart into the driveway.
Moments later he was in shock, holding her crumpled body.
Steven and his wife Mary Beth called for paramedics. As they sped with the first responders toward the ER, Steven shouted out the window of his car to Will, who was sobbing inconsolably in the arms of older brother Caleb:
“Will, your father will always love you!”
Maria died a few hours later. The Chapmans were propelled onto a pathway of grief that at times seemed too much to bear. What they feared the most is that this tragedy would claim not just Maria, but Will.
Steven described the pain as wondering if he could even take his next breath. He labeled the circumstances a “completely unfixable” situation that won’t make sense until the next world. It has dramatically affected his songwriting over the past decade and a half.
In the days after the accident, Mary Beth found some artwork that Maria had been working on just a few hours before May 21. She hadn’t yet learned how to read and write but was making copies of words. One word was especially prominent: “See.”
In her memoir, Choosing to See, Mary Beth chronicles her attempts to make sense of losing a child. She cries, rages, doubts, grieves, and ultimately embraces hope.
“Will I ever get over this?” she writes. “Never. But I will get through it.”
Mary Beth declares that she increasingly sees the reality of Psalm 30:5: “Nights of crying our eyes out will be followed by days of laughter.”
Laughter will one day follow tears. Such is the grace of God. Even when life breaks our hearts.
That truth is underlined by the reality that there’s no place we can go where Jesus hasn’t gone before. He has even preceded us into the realm of the dead.
And that helps shine light on what is arguably the most controversial line in the Apostles’ Creed – a turn of phrase so misunderstood and neglected that some church traditions have chosen to omit it from their recitation of the Creed altogether.
The traditional Catholic and Protestant versions of the Creed declare that Jesus – following his crucifixion, death, and burial – “descended into hell.”
This raises a host of difficult questions. Why would Jesus – whom the New Testament describes as the only sinless person in history – end up in a place of punishment for those who have steadfastly rejected God? What did he hope to accomplish there? And where in the world is this idea taught in the Bible?
Fortunately, such questions don’t require answers. That’s because it appears that a fourth century monk named Rufinus, by changing a single word in the Creed, generated a great deal of needless misunderstanding.
The earliest known versions of the Apostles’ Creed assert that Jesus “descended into inferus.” Rufinus substituted the Latin word inferna, which means “hell.” Western churches chose to keep the new word, while Orthodox churches retained inferus.
What does it mean?
Inferus is the Latin designation for the underworld – the place of the dead. It is roughly equivalent to the Hebrew word Sheol and the Greek word Hades.
The underworld is not a cave. It is not a physical realm where deceased men and women live as “shades,” only half-human, as described in epic works like those of the Greek poet Homer.
From a biblical standpoint, Sheol or Hades is the invisible-world domain of those who have died and are awaiting final judgment.
It is also the answer to the question, “Where was Jesus between Good Friday and Easter?” He hinted at this in Matthew 12:40, when he told the Pharisees, “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
When Jesus rose from the dead, in other words, he did not “go to heaven.” We recall that he told Mary Magdalene in John 20:17, “Don’t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father.”
So what did Jesus mean when he said to the repentant thief on the cross, “Today you shall be with me in Paradise”?
While it’s safe to say, biblically speaking, that we know next to nothing about the precise circumstances that await us on the other side of death, we do know that those who trust Christ will be “with him” (Philippians 1:21-23). And that will be an extraordinarily positive experience.
What was Jesus doing between his burial and resurrection?
Bible scholars and theologians suggest he was doing at least three things.
First, he preached the Good News of his achievements to the dead. His sacrificial death on the cross accomplished the remedy for human sin that had been sorely missing since the disaster of Genesis chapter three.
Second, he set free the saints of old. The righteous people of Old Testament times were released, in some sense, from captivity – something described in Psalm 68 and later by the apostle Paul in the book of Ephesians.
Third, he declared – to one and all, angels and demons alike – his victory over Death. Perhaps he arrived with a shout: “I win!” Jesus had said that the gates of hell could not hold him and his kingdom (Matthew 16:18). Medieval artists depicted the victorious Jesus tearing those gates right off their hinges.
What was Jesus doing between Good Friday and Easter? He was knocking down the doors of Death.
Sometimes preachers suggest that there really is a sense in which Jesus “descends into hell.” In the words of Dean Thompson, former president of Louisville Seminary, “the love that Christ reveals in the cross is so strong that it can descend into any hell we can create, thaw out our frozen souls, and lead us into the light and peace of paradise, despite our fears and weaknesses.”
As the Chapmans have discovered, Jesus meets us wherever we are.
We may not find it easy to get over life’s most difficult moments.
But we can assuredly get through them.
All because we trust the Savior who has experienced them not only before us, but for us.