Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 478

What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended

into the lower regions of the earth?

The one who descended is also the one who ascended

far above all the heavens,

that he might fill all things.

From early childhood I learned the Apostles Creed and that astonishing expression, "...he descended into hell." People sometimes ask with a certain note of suspicion, "Where is that in the Bible?"

There it is in Saint Paul's Letter to the Ephesians. The lower regions of the earth can only be Hell. 

But our mythic geography has changed a lot since the Apostles Creed first appeared. Not very long ago it wasn't hard to imagine heaven as a happy place up there, and hell as a dismal place down under. But down under is Australia, and up there is only the upper atmosphere, above the treeline where nothing lives. 

When Jesus descended to the lower regions of earth, he came to rest briefly in a manger in Bethlehem. From there, a house in Egypt; then a home in Nazareth; and finally a grave outside of Jerusalem. His lower regions were poverty, infamy, shame and exile where he was despised, hounded, tortured and killed. 

It was necessary that our Savior should experience the worst "places" of human life so that they might be blessed by his presence. Their occupants must know that no place is beyond his reach. 

If I ascend to the heavens, you are there;

if I lie down in Sheol, there you are.

If I take the wings of dawn

and dwell beyond the sea,

Even there your hand guides me,

your right hand holds me fast.

If I say, “Surely darkness shall hide me,

and night shall be my light”—

Darkness is not dark for you,

and night shines as the day.

Darkness and light are but one. Psalm 139

There are millions of people living in exile today but not all are far from their homelands. Certainly, millions of Africans, South Americans, and Asians are fleeing their native lands, driven out by famine, drought and war. Climatologists tell us these migrations, which began in prehistoric times, will grow exponentially as the tropics become uninhabitable. 

But there are millions also in America, who are alienated from their families, friends and churches. Lost and hopeless like James Matthew Barrie's "lost boys," they find no welcome within what should be a familiar world. Estranged from their own bodies by alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and the pursuit of any kind of relief, they turn to violence against "aliens" because they don't recognize the alienation in their own souls. They would defend a homeland in which they have never felt welcome, and traditions with neither grace nor culture.  

They do not know that Jesus is with them in their lower regions of anguish and fear. But he has gone to gather them. 

The one who descended is also the one who ascended

far above all the heavens,

that he might fill all things.

It is never too late to announce the Good News. It may be too late to reverse climate change; it may politically impossible, given the forces that both deny and cause it. But it is not too late to go with Jesus into the lower regions of earth, to experience his desolation and to rise with him to communion with lost, alienated souls.