“He Descended Into Hell, The Third Day He Rose Again From The Dead”
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#6 Sermon in Series on Apostle’s Creed:
I have told a cute story over the years about a man who met one of those folks who had one of those huge travel trailer type things, you know, when you go on vacation, like a Winnebago. He was out in the parking lot talking to this guy and the guy is all excited about his Winnebago. He says, “Yeah, it’s great! We go all over the country; and it sleeps eight. By the way, what do you do?” The pastor said, “Well I pastor the church over there, and it sleeps about one hundred and fifty.”
As you know, I have been preaching through the Apostles’ Creed. The problem is when you do doctrinal preaching, sometimes, it can be rather boring. In other words, we might literally sleep one hundred and fifty. But, you know what? I like to preach about doctrine, about Christian truth. It excites me. It might sound strange, but what I am hoping is that as we go through this that some of my enthusiasm will rub off on you, and we can all learn something. These are things we already know, in most cases. But it is good to revisit them because they do form a kind of helmet around our head to help us when we doubt. We hear all kinds of things out there on television or people who argue this and that, all kinds of books that are written about “what really happened.” They form a shell around our head to help us to ward off these things. Or, another analogy, they are our foundation on which we stand which will take us into eternity. So, these things are exciting.
Now, we have gone through the Apostles’ Creed and learned several things. We started out by saying that “I believe in God.” That is what the Apostles’ Creed starts with. “I believe in God;” notice it doesn’t say “We.” We noted that when we believe in something it starts with you, the individual. Your faith doesn’t depend on your grandparents, your parents, your children, or anybody else. You have to come to faith. You have to believe these things. We all do, as individuals. Yes, God brings us together as a Church, but our faith is our faith. One of the dangers of being a pastor is, and for a pastor’s child (PK’s we call them – preacher’s kids), you know, sometimes pastors get so wrapped around the axle because their kids are an example of him or her. “Well, they have to believe, too.” It is hard. I have always known that my children have to come to faith themselves. I have tried not to be too strict. Kathy might be able to tell you different, I am not sure, but… But it is a tricky business. I prayed when I saw them come out of the womb. “Lord, bring them to faith, their faith.” You know, I criticize the Church, I am not talking about church with a little “c”, I am talking about Presbyterian Church, and the American Church. We don’t do enough evangelism. We are not doing enough evangelism. But you know what? God brings the Church together every generation. The Holy Spirit is still working. People are still coming to Christ. People still show up to Church, because people are coming. We would like to see more. But, people are coming; and that is encouraging, that’s encouraging.
We have learned that faith starts with ourselves. We believe. We say we believe in God. Well, what kind of God do we believe in? We “believe in the Father Almighty.” We noted that Father has little to do with gender, very little to do with gender. People get wrapped around the axle again with this idea of: Is it a she or a he, or whatever, that sort of thing. God doesn’t have gender like you and I do. But, he is a Father. It points to the fact that God is a personal God who can be known. It points to the fact that God is the Creator of all things and we, and all things aside, depend on him for our existence of every moment. There are a lot of wonderful theological things about God as Father, who is also Almighty. The Christian view of God is that God is not only Maker of Earth and Heaven, all of the Earth and all of his details, but the entire Universe and the billions of galaxies and stars in every detail. I have said a couple times to you that when I think about that, I feel like Winnie the Pooh, a bear of little brain, because it is so much bigger than any of us can understand. But, that is good, because if we could understand God, God wouldn’t be God. I would be suspicious of a God I could understand, totally. Now, that doesn’t mean we can’t know him; we can. But God is a God who is the “Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth.”
We learned that Jesus Christ is his only Son. That is, again, it doesn’t mean that Jesus is his son like Thor was the son of Odin or Hercules the son of Zeus. It is pointing to the fact that Jesus is God walking on the earth. Yes, it does say that Jesus is the Son. He was born of the Virgin Mary, the son of a human woman, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Again, the Incarnation, bigger than we can understand but we affirm that Jesus was God walking on the earth.
And that this Christ, the Messiah, died for us on the cross, died a real death on the cross. You know, we have seen so many people who want to deny that Jesus actually died, that Jesus really, really died, that it means something; but he did. The Bible affirms and says very clearly that if Jesus didn’t really die, you can’t be saved. Two weeks ago when I preached, remember I pointed to that cross. The cross is the centerpiece of Christianity. And yes, it is strange to people. It is strange to hang an instrument of torture on your neck as a necklace. It would be like having an electric chair there in modern times. And to put it up on our churches, but we do that. Why do we do that? We do it because it is a sign of God’s love. It is a sign of God’s justice. It is the way we are saved. The Bible says “without the shedding of blood, you will not be saved.” Some people today in the Church deny that. They say “Oh that is too violent.” Well yeah, it is because it was necessary. Our sins are bigger than we think and we are not going anywhere without that cross.
Well, what happens next, that is where we are today. That’s where we are. What happens after the cross? It is like a chronology, if you will. “He died on the cross and then he descended into hell.” Now we have gotten to one of those places where it is really hard. What does that mean? I took a church, actually two churches, when I moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. One church was called Eastminster Presbyterian. It was about three hundred plus members; but they were yoked with a smaller church of about fifty. They had an interesting arrangement. The bigger church paid me and the smaller church paid the youth pastor. So we got along pretty well. But, the funny part about it was, I would preach in the little church early and the second church late. The early church, when they said the Apostles’ Creed, they “descended into hell.” When I got to the other church, they didn’t “descend into hell.” For the first three or four months I was confused. I would forget to say we “descended into hell” at the first church and then remembered and then I would do just the opposite. I would “descend into hell” and then I wouldn’t “descend into hell.” I’m trying to be silly here a little bit. But, it was a little bit confusing. Now, why do some churches have it and some not? Well, because this phrase, “descended into hell,” for one thing it is confusing, and the other is it wasn’t in the original Apostles’ Creed. It was added a little later, about four centuries. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have it. What is going on? What does it mean to us? Well, first, in the Creed, hell is not really hell. I am not swearing when I say “hell.” Hell is not really hell. Now, it changed along the way. After the seventeenth century, “Hell” became the state of eternal retribution. It changed from something else. Now I don’t preach on “Hell” enough, I probably should. I remember at another church I served down in Texas, I preached on an
August Sunday morning when the air conditioning was out, and I remember getting up and saying, “You are allowed to get up and take your coat off. I am going to preach on ‘Hell’ and it is going to be very short.” I actually didn’t because I wasn’t prepared, but…. …The state of eternal retribution. In the Bible the word is Gehennaand it refers to the Valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem. Back in the day this little valley just outside of Jerusalem was the place where the pagans of the Jews, but they were pagans, all around, would come to this valley and they would worship the Ba’als, or the god, Moloch, and they would sacrifice their children in fire. Burn them alive! It’s terrible. There is a place near there where they have found a football field sized in which the bones of the children are stacked up three foot deep. It became the place, literally, of hell. Later in history, people would simply dump their animals there, or in some cases, human beings. The legend had it that there was always a fire going there and it became a symbol of this place of eternal retribution. It exists. It was a putrid, horrible place.
Now, in the Bible, I feel like, in some ways, doing a series like this that I am doing, it is kind of like 24, on television. You know, you bring up things and then you resolve them later. Well later on, the very last sermon in August, we are going to talk about “the Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting,” and we are going to talk about some of these things; but the Bible says that there is a state of being after we die – in the Old Testament they called it Sheol – where we go and Jesus has transformed this place into a kind of paradise, not the Muslim Paradise with lots of virgins; but, a paradise, which is a wonderful place; but it is temporary. At the end of history we all get a new body. I will talk more about that. I am maybe whetting your appetite, or in your curiosity, going, “Huh?” But that is what is going to happen. But the whole thing about Jesus descending into hell, lots of different interpretation, but the thing we need to remember about it is this: that Jesus has gone there before. Jesus has been there before.
When you are a soldier in the Army, if you go overseas and you serve in a war zone, you get a patch on your right shoulder of the unit you served in. When people see it, they know you were overseas and served in a war zone. We don’t say it, but it is kind of a mark of pride, a little bit. Sometimes people get up and they talk to you about being deployed and all those different kinds of things and I try not to, but since I have been deployed, I sometimes say in my mind, “Who are you to talk to me about being deployed? You haven’t been there yet?” And it is not fair. It is not fair. It isn’t fair. But it still is there. Well in some ways we could say that to God? “Who are you to talk to me about death and resurrection?” But God’s been there, you see. Jesus really died. You know there are people who say that Jesus didn’t really die. They got him off the cross. We have the Dan Brown thing, you know—he went and got married to Mary Magdalene and produced children—all that kind of thing. I had somebody tell me, “Oh, that’s great. We should talk about those things and learn new truth.” It was a member of a church and I am going, “We should certainly talk about these things but the implications are that if you believe that,” well I will talk about that in a minute, “but we shouldn’t be here. It undercuts everything we believe.” But God’s been there before us.
Jesus is our trailblazer. Look at this wonderful verse. Jesus is talking to his disciples, right at the end, and he says, “And if I go, I am going to go, and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:3) See the picture is that Jesus is going to lead us through when we die. He is going to lead us through. I love that.
Another way of thinking of it is an example I read, a man named Soren Kierkegaard used to tell this wonderful tale about how a father and his daughter got caught in a burning building. They were in the second story and the father was able to leap out the window and land safely on the ground and then he turned and said to his daughter, “Honey, jump.” And the daughter cried out, “Daddy, I can’t see you!” And he said, “Don’t worry, I can see you. Jump. Trust me!” That is what God says to us. We can’t see what is going to happen in death. We are not able to see that; but Jesus sees us. So don’t worry. Don’t be afraid. That’s the truth. Jesus has been there before. So when we say “Descended into Hell,” we probably should change the wording—that Jesus simply walked in the path of death, because that is what it means.
Then we come to the most exciting part of all. I have to admit, I love preaching Easter sermons. If you can’t preach an Easter sermon as a preacher, without notes, with just getting up and talking, because that is what it is all about. “The Third Day He Rose Again From the Dead.” Now what is this “third day” thing? I used to think, let’s see. I am thinking in the modern ways. Seventy-two hours, well, no, that doesn’t quite work. Well, it is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That’s how ancients would think. So it is the third day he rose again.
But there is something we have to remember: If there is no Resurrection, we should all be doing something else. Jesus rose from the dead. Now remember I said the cross of Christ was the center of Christianity. Well I didn’t lie to you but there is something more. You see it is the Cross plus the Resurrection. Without the Cross there is no eternal life. But, without the Resurrection, Jesus would have been dead and wouldn’t have completed the work. Now, I would just ask you, what if Jesus was like Confucius or like Gandhi or some other great teacher. If all we had were the teachings, would it make any difference? And the answer would be a resounding “no!” Actually I would say, “yes, it would make a big difference; because if he didn’t rise from the dead, why are we here?” If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead it actually would be o.k. for you to sleep in on Sunday morning. It actually would be o.k. for you to play golf on Sunday morning. It would even be o.k. for you to leave church early and go to a Vikings game this fall. Whoops, I am stepping on toes, I know…. You should eat, drink and be merry because it doesn’t matter any more, unless church is for you just having donuts and coffee and fellowship. If there is no Resurrection, we all shouldn’t be here. Paul himself says the same thing. He says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17) You see, the Resurrection is like the completion of something. It is like when a general surrenders to another general. You know, the war is all but over but it isn’t complete until the surrender is signed, or the sword has been given over. It completes it all.
We believe, because the Scriptures say, that Jesus rose from the dead. Well you might say, “Well how do I believe that?” That is a legitimate question. “How do I believe that?” Well one is what I have been trying to say to you, it is absolutely necessary to believe. If you are going to be a Christian, you have to believe in that. Your faith is futile if you don’t believe it. But even more, there is lots of evidence, lots of evidence. Now, it is courtroom evidence, not scientific evidence. Scientific evidence means you go back and try to recreate it in the laboratory. That is not going to happen. But if you take this as courtroom evidence, there were five hundred witnesses to Jesus rising from the dead. He appeared to people multiple times. It doesn’t have the sense of being hallucinations. You know I have seen people with hallucinations. I have had a few myself. It doesn’t work quite that way. It doesn’t work that way. And then the lives of the disciples themselves were so completely changed that they would walk up to people and say, “Jesus rose from the dead.” That was a threat of death but they didn’t care. Plus, the Church… You know, I am getting so sick of these books that are written that say the Church is cause of all the wars and suffering of the world. If it weren’t for the Christian Church, we wouldn’t have half the hospitals in the world, half the educational institutions, and untold people who are helped and fed. And even today, some of the best relief organizations are run by Christians. Now we have the United Nations, I am not saying they are bad; but the best ones are run by Christians. If it weren’t for Christians and the Church of Jesus Christ, this world would be a really horrible place, more than it is. More than it is. Plus, the nature of God… Remember I talked to you about the virgin birth and how some people have a hard time with that? But, if you have already accepted that God is Father Almighty, and could make this whole universe, why can’t he reverse the things he has done? You know, we think death is natural only because it happens to everybody but it wasn’t original. God can reverse the natural order of things, because he is God. Once you have accepted God Almighty, a virgin birth or a resurrection isn’t that hard. It isn’t that hard.
We should have a healthy anticipation of what is to come! Now this is a little precursor to some of the stuff we will talk about, but the practical idea of believing in a resurrection is, you know, we ought to have a little dance in our step all the time. You know, I have told you a couple times that sometimes I, maybe not cringe, but you know when people talk about, well, they are talking with one another and they say, “How’s your life going?” And they say, “Well it is better than being under the sod.” “At least I’m on top of the ground and not under it.” You know, it is o.k. It really is o.k. but you know to some degree, if you want to be consistent, where would you rather be? With Jesus in Paradise, or here? Hmmm? Well, you might say here. Now, I know, I know. I’m not afraid of death and I’m not trying to lift myself up. I am not terribly hot on the process. I have seen people die and sometimes it is o.k. and sometimes it is not. So I understand that. I do. I do understand. But, as Paul says, “I count almost as nothing the trials and the sufferings of this time compared to what awaits us in glory.” “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared…” (1 Corinthians 2:9) There is some sense in which you should be looking forward to this time even a thousand times more than your greatest vacation, or the birth of your grandchild, or whatever you can think. Of all the wonderful things in the world, this is going to be much better, so much better, because you, you, have eternal life in Jesus Christ. Indeed the story of the whole Bible is a reversal of what happens. We lost Paradise and God is giving it back to us in spades. We can’t imagine what it is going to be like but it is going be wonderful.
I’ll close with a story I told my first Easter here, my first Easter here, seven years ago. In a Sunday school class a teacher asked, “What did Jesus say after he walked out of the tomb on that day?” And one of the little girls stood up and said, “Tada!”
What are you going to say when you see him for the first time?
Would you pray with me?
Lord God, thank you for going to death for us, real death that you actually did it and that means something because we know because you did you will be with us. You have been there before. You are our trailblazer. You walked the path. You will guide us through. You have promised that. Thank you. Thank you for what awaits us because we too, because you were raised, we will be raised. It isn’t just a vain hope. It isn’t just pie in the sky. It isn’t just believing something we know isn’t so. It is real. It is true. It is great. Help us to believe it. Help us to look forward to it. Help us to live our lives as people who know where they are going and it is not bad, it’s great. Help us live that way in Jesus’ name. Amen.