Not Like Any Other Saturday

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday May 2, 2010, the 5th Sunday in Easter. Thanks to the Reverend Doctor Ellen Babinsky for teaching me the Reformed Confessions.

Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

On Wednesday evening, Lucille and I were discussing this passage, which is what we always do on Wednesday nights, but aside from that, we started to focus on the end of verse 33; “Where I am going, you cannot come.” As I started to wonder what this meant, Lucille asked, “Where is it that Jesus is going that the disciples cannot come? Is it hell or somewhere else?” Well, like I said, I had just begun to wonder myself just where Jesus was going that the disciples cannot come, but I wasn’t thinking anything so provocative.

My thoughts were more mundane, more physical. Jesus would go before the courts and the rulers. Was this where they could not come? Well, on that day, on the day that we commemorate as Maundy Thursday that was surely true. The path Jesus walked that day he would go without his disciples. But according to the Book of Acts, Stephen, though not one of the first twelve but still a disciple; Stephen would be found guilty before the Scribes and Pharisees. In the years to come, the Apostle Paul would be bound and jailed and appear before several Near East and Roman rulers and magistrates. He would eventually be taken to Rome for trial.

Jesus went to the Tetrarch, the local ruler, but Paul went all the way to Caesar.[1]

While the twelve would not go with Jesus that day, they would go before the rulers and governors and emperors spreading the gospel. Not on the same day as the Lord, but they would appear before them soon enough. In their own day and time, many, many disciples would appear before rulers and magistrates. In our own day and time, many, many disciples continue to appear before rulers and magistrates.

The more obvious answer is to the cross. The accounts of the crucifixion teach us that the disciples would scatter, like sheep when the shepherd is struck, before Jesus would be taken to the cross. Only one of the gospels places even one disciple, the beloved disciple, on Golgotha when Jesus was placed on the tree.[2] In fact, the scriptural witness shows that it was the women who were present when the Lord was on the cross. Was this where they could not come?

We know well that while no other disciple would be crucified on this day, we know that many would face a martyr’s death. After Stephen was found guilty by the Sanhedrin, he was stoned on the spot.[3] We are told that Peter would go to the cross, and in true Petrine style, he would declare that he was not worthy to die in the same way as his Lord. This is the reason we are told Peter was crucified upside-down,[4] with his feet to the sky and his head to the ground. Peter’s brother Andrew also was crucified in a novel way. The cross he was hung from was shaped like the letter “X”. This shape would come to bear the name “St. Andrew’s Cross.”[5]

Again, the crucifixion of the disciples would not happen on the day we call Good Friday, but they would hang from their own crosses soon enough. A martyr’s death and even crucifixion itself was not where the disciples could not come.

So much for my mundane suggestions. I think they’re pretty interesting. It is interesting enough that I wanted us to know that Jesus had laid out many footsteps that the disciples would eventually follow. These are places of honor and horror, agony and ecstasy, glory and shame that the disciples would follow in the same way as their Lord. So where was it that the disciples cannot come? This brings me back to Lucille’s wonderful suggestion: Hell.

As for what hell is, since the first century B.C., the Greek word gehenna was used in a “metaphorical sense to denote the place of fiery torment believed to be reserved for the wicked either immediately after death or ultimately after the Last Judgment.”[6] This word is the major New Testament source of our images of hell. So this is where we begin answering the question “Where’s Jesus” and what it means to say “He descended into Hell.”[7]

In the years that passed, since the ascension of Christ and the death of the first generations of disciples, the church sought to figure out what it meant to be the Church. The first major council of bishops of the church came together in the 300’s and developed the Nicene Creed. Begun in 325 AD and reaching its final form in 381, this creed tells us that Jesus suffered and was buried.[8]

It wasn’t the Apostles’ Creed, a writing begun in 180 AD and not finalized until the eighth century, that the phrase “he descended into hell” was added This line was actually added to the creed in the fifth century, making it one of the creed’s latest additions.[9]

So we have an interesting premise, thanks to Lucille; and a bit of history, thanks to me. We got him in hell, but this doesn’t help us much when we ask “What does it mean?” and “What does that mean for us today?”

For the first question, we can look at other places in The Book of Confessions. The Confessions aren’t the same as scripture, of course. The purpose of the Confessions is to interpret scripture for a specific time and place. The Nicene Creed was the way that fourth century Christians interpreted their faith. The Apostles’ Creed was the second major creed and was held as an authoritative interpretation of the faith for European Christians. The Eastern Orthodox Church had some issues with this creed beginning the granddaddy of all church splits that would come in 1054 when the Eastern Orthodox Church would branch from the Church of Rome.

Creeds had continued to be written through the ages, but one of the most important creeds is The Westminster Standards. The Reformation was 120-some years old when the “English House of Commons adopted an ordinance calling for the ‘settling of the government and liturgy of the Church of England (in a manner) most agreeable to God’s Holy Word and most apt to procure the peace of the church at home and nearer abroad.’” If you can explain what this means in one paragraph, you have done better than the Book of Confessions by five.

In short, between 1643 and 1649 a group of English politicians, theologians, clergy, and others wrote what would “represent the fruits of a Protestant scholasticism that refined and systematized the teachings of the Reformation.”[10] Or in my words, defined what it meant to be a Christian, a member of the Church of England, since the mid 17th century.

In the Westminster Standard’s Larger Catechism, the fiftieth question asks: “Wherein consisted Christ’s humiliation after his death?” (Between you and me, some might say the King’s English has more pizzazz, but I understand the way we speak much better.)

The respondent answers the question: “Christ's humiliation after his death consisted in his being buried, and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day, which hath been otherwise expressed in these words: ‘He descended into hell.’”[11]

Jesus was under the power of death, under the power of death. Whatever those medieval artists rendered as being under the “powers of death” is what that meant. Every scary story about the dead ever written comes to mind, and the renaissance flare makes it special. The plagues of Revelation without the redeeming presence we read this morning, this is what we’re talking about as being “under the powers of death.”

This is how the church interpreted Jesus descending into hell, but how does this play into him saying, “where I am going, you cannot come?”

The Heidelberg Catechism was completed about 100 years before the Westminster’s by two young men, theologian Zacharias Ursinus and preacher Kaspar Olevianus. They were asked by Frederick the Elector, ruler of Palatinate, to create a creed acceptable to the new German Reformed Churches and the only slightly more established Lutheran churches.[12]

The Heidelberg Catechism offers three questions and answers that I share with you now:

The question “What further benefit do we receive from the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross?” is answered “That by his power our old self is crucified, put to death, and buried with him, so that the evil passions of our mortal bodies may reign in us no more, but that we may offer ourselves to him as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.”[13]

This question comes first reminding us that Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried. By the power of Christ, our old self dies with him even before we are born. In response to this gracious act taken on our behalf, we may offer ourselves in thanks to God.

This question also helps reinforce the importance of the next two.

The next question is “Why is there added: ‘He descended into hell’?” To this we respond, “That in my severest tribulations I may be assured that Christ my Lord has redeemed me from hellish anxieties and torment by the unspeakable anguish, pains, and terrors which he suffered in his soul both on the cross and before.” [14]

By Christ’s descent into hell, we are redeemed from the horrors of our lives. By Christ’s descent into hell, we are saved the horrors of unredeemed death.

Finally, we ask “What benefit do we receive from ‘the resurrection’ of Christ?” The glorious answer is, “First, by his resurrection he has overcome death that he might make us share in the righteousness which he has obtained for us through his death. Second, we too are now raised by his power to a new life. Third, the resurrection of Christ is a sure pledge to us of our blessed resurrection.[15]

By his resurrection, his departure from hell, his conquering death, Christ offers us a share of what he has obtained in his death and being raised to new life, we receive the pledge, the promise of our resurrection.

Yes, I like Lucille’s style. She asks what it means that the disciples cannot come where he is going. By the Confessions we learn that Lucille’s question about hell has wonderful and glorious insights. You see, because of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the redeemed church, the blessed people of God will not be found in Hell because Jesus went there so we would not have to. Jesus conquered hell so that we would not have to follow.

We read this in The Revelation of John today:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’

And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’”

The next question, the one that matters for us today, is “So what does this mean to us?” How’s this for the quick answer: No matter how horrible, how terrible, how painful and how terrified our lives become, Jesus has been there. Jesus has conquered life and death that bad and worse. With thanksgiving, I have great hope in this; Jesus knows how bad I feel, how difficult life is; and has nothing but grace and peace for me. With thanksgiving, we have great hope in this; Jesus knows how bad we feel, how difficult our lives are; and has nothing but grace and peace for us. How’s that.

In Christ, because he descended into hell, death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more.

This is the peace we are to share with one another and the world. Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

We receive the love of Jesus Christ that comes from hell and back. We receive the love of Jesus Christ that was refined in the fiery torment on the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, a Saturday not like any other Saturday. This is the love that we are called to share with one another and the stranger in our midst. We are called to join the stranger in their walk through their hell for the heavenly cause.[16]

We may say it’s not easy to live that way today, but honestly, humanity didn’t make it easy for Jesus either. But by the powerful grace, peace and love of Jesus Christ, it is our call, our vocation, and in that way we will know we are his disciples; and the world will know we are his disciples.

[1] Note: I resisted adding the joke that Paul played “the original Caesar’s Palace.
[2] John 19:26-27
[3] Acts 7:54-60
[4] St. Peter, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peter, retrieved May 2, 2010.
[5] St. Andrew, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Andrew, retrieved May 2, 2010.
[6] Gehenna, Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible
[7] Note: Is this the only answer to the question of where Jesus went where the disciples could not follow? The Right Hand of God is another viable answer. God’s imagination is far better than mine, but I like this answer and think we should explore it.
[8] The Book of Confessions, The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part I. Louisville, KY: The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2004, page 2.
[9] Ibid, page 6.
[10] Ibid, pages 118-119.
[11] Ibid, page 201, Book of Confessions section 7.160.
[12] Ibid, page 28.
[13] Ibid, page 35, Book of Confessions section 4.043
[14] Ibid, page 35, Book of Confessions section 4.044
[15] Ibid, page 35, Book of Confessions section 4.045
[16] Paraphrase from Leigh, Mitch and Darion, Joe. “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” from “The Man of La Mancha.” 1965.