2
Easter 6a 2014
25 May
Acts 17:22-31; Ps. 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21
Jack Hardaway
BREAKFAST IN HELL
I once ate breakfast in hell. Technically it was Gehenna, a valley on the edge of Jerusalem that used to be the garbage pit for the city back in the old days. It’s a park now. I ate a sesame bagel there. Nice place.
Jesus sometimes spoke of Gehenna as a place of torment in the afterlife, a burning garbage pit, a place of death.
There is this fascinating line in the Apostles Creed that speaks of Jesus descending to the dead. It comes from the lesson from 1 Peter this morning. It says “he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison.”
This verse and a handful of others verses is evidence of the early Christian fascination with where Jesus was between his death and his resurrection.
The Apostles creed gave language to this, He descended to the dead, to Hades, to hell, depending on the translation.
By the early fourth century that language was dropped when the Nicene Creed was written. There was a shift in emphasis.
But the early Christian belief in Jesus descending to the dead has persisted through time.
There was dramatic preaching, stage performances, and art work all the way through the middle ages and beyond, for over a thousand years Christian imagination and devotion held tightly to this image and hope of Christ invading death itself and setting the captives free.
It was called the “Harrowing of Hell.”
There are icons of Jesus busting down the gates of death, from the inside out, and lifting Adam and Eve up by the hand, lifting humanity up.
There are others images of Jesus prying open the jaws of hell with the cross and again lifting Adam and Eve up by the hand, lifting humanity, setting the captives free. This medieval image of a ravenous mouth chewing on humanity was called “hellmouth”, Jesus broke the jaws of hell. The bulletin cover is an example of this.
Sometimes our humanity is chewed up, held captive, hell has free reign.
The early Christians found great hope and courage in Jesus descending to the darkest places to lift us from our captivity.
The hope and power of Easter, the mystery of the resurrection, is that God finds us and is with us in the darkest places, and lifts us up again. We will never be orphaned from the Father. Nothing can separate us from God. That is the overwhelming power of Christ’s Resurrection.
We worship a crucified messiah who is risen.
That means that grace abounds where we are the most broken and wounded.
Grace floods the world through brokenness, through wounds, the wounds of Christ are the awesome source.
Grace doesn’t enter the world through virtue, through having our stuff together, through being perfect, through success and excellence. No. Grace rather enters the world where we are at our worst.
This is the scandal of the cross, the scandal of grace.
Tomorrow is Memorial Day, where we honor and remember all who have died in war. War is its own kind of hell. Just as many come back who are emotionally broken, something has died in them. The survivor’s of war are often tormented. It is hard to escape from hell.
Yet this is where Christians believe that grace abounds. Christ breaks down the doors, prying open the devouring maw.
Wounds, brokenness, it is a sacred place, a holy place, where we move slowly and reverently as God brings about new life.
Our culture tries to hide suffering, to forget it, to push it away. We shame brokenness and failure and weakness.
But for Christians this is where we find God. What was shameful has become the source of honor, a crucified messiah.
We break our bread in hell.
The farther we fall the greater God’s grace abounds.
Alleluia!