The Cross as Revealing Christ's Descent into Hell
by Fr Ron Rolheiser
2002-03-17
There's a curious line in our creed which
says that, immediately following his death, Jesus "descended into hell". What,
possibly, can that mean?
Within the popular Christian mindset we have the conception that, as a
consequence of original sin, the gates of heaven were closed so that, from the
time of Adam and Eve until the moment of Jesus' death, nobody could enter
paradise. Only a divine act of reparation could again give human beings access
to heaven and that act of reparation was Jesus' death which "paid the debt of
sin" and so opened the gates of heaven.
In this view of things, all the just who had died from the time of Adam and
Eve until Jesus' death were asleep somewhere, in a Hades of sorts. Immediately
following his death, Jesus descends to that underworld and awakens these souls
and then triumphantly leads them into paradise. That descent to the underworld
to wake the souls of the dead and take them to heaven is what is understood as
"the descent into hell". The image of this is wonderfully captured in an
ancient homily that the church now uses as one of its readings for the hour of
vigils on Holy Saturday.
But that's an image, something that captures, as might an icon, a deeper
reality. It's not a video-tape of an actual happening. How is it to be
interpreted? How did Jesus descend into hell?
Let me try to explain this by combining three images:
The first is a story, a tragic one: Some years ago some family friends of
mine lost a daughter to suicide. She was in her early twenties and away from
home when she made her first attempt to kill herself. The family rushed to her,
flew her home, surrounded her with loving solicitude, took her to doctors of
ever kind, and generally tried every possible way to love and coax her out of
her deadly depression. In the end, they failed. She killed herself, despite
their efforts. All the loving effort and professional resources they could
muster could not break through and bring her out of the private hell into which
she had descended. Strong as human love can be, sometimes it stands helpless,
exhausted, before a door it can't open.
My second image is taken from John's Gospel: After Jesus rises from
the dead, he appears to the disciples who, as John describes, are huddled
together in a room, in fear, with the doors locked. Jesus comes right through
the locked doors, stands inside the middle of their fear, and breathes out
peace. A week later, he does it again.
A third image: When I was a young boy, my mother gave me a holy card, an
adaptation of a famous painting by Holman Hunt ("The Christ Who Knocks") In
the version my mother gave me, we see, behind a locked door, a man huddled and
paralysed by a fear and darkness of some kind. Outside the door stands Jesus,
with a lantern, knocking, ready to relieve the man of his burden. But there's a
hitch, the door only has a knob on the inside. Jesus cannot enter, unless the
man first unlocks the door. There's the implication that God cannot help unless
we first let God in. Fair enough? Not exactly.
What the cross of Christ reveals is that when we are so paralysed by fear and
overcome by darkness that we can no longer help ourselves, when we have reached
the stage where we can no longer open the door to let light and life in, God can
still come through our locked doors, stand inside our fear and paralysis, and
breathe out peace. The love that is revealed in Jesus' suffering and death, a
love that is so other-centred that it can fully forgive and embrace its
executioners, can precisely pass through locked doors, melt frozen hearts,
penetrate the walls of fear, and descend into our private hells and, there,
breathe out peace.
In the case of the young woman who committed suicide, she had reached a point
where she was frozen inside of a private hell, behind doors that her family's
love and professional doctors could no longer open. They stood outside of her
locked doors, like Jesus in Holman Hunt's painting, knocking, begging for a
response that she could no longer give. I have no doubt though that when she
awoke on the other side she found Christ standing inside her fear and darkness,
breathing out peace.
The doctrine of the "descent into hell" is singularly the most consoling of all
doctrines, in any religion. As that ancient homily on Holy Saturday so
wonderfully puts it, 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.
The cross of Christ does not stand helpless before a locked door.