Just a little bit of Buechner

Frederick Buechner is someone whose work I wish I'd met long, long ago. For years, I've heard people I know and trust speak so very highly of him, you'd think he'd contributed to Word himself. Smart, funny, thoughtful, rich and wide in breadth, Buechner's reputation had soared in my mind even if I hadn't taken the time to read him. 

I have now, although not extensively. Barbara and I have used a book of meditations of his that was just wonderful. Somewhere behind me on the shelves, I've got, unread, Godrick, a novel, I think, and I read a little bit of him every day.

A friend of mine told me his laptop gets a shot of Fred Buechner every morning. Sounded like a great idea, so I signed up. 

This one came about a week ago.

A theologian I respect once said at a conference that I attended, a conference where she was a speaker, that no true Calvinist can say he or she hasn't flirted wildly with universalism. When I read this chunk of Frederick Buechner, I was reminded of that line and, smilingly, my own flirtations. 

Descent Into Hell

 

THERE IS AN OBSCURE PASSAGE in the First Letter of Peter where the old saint writes that after the crucifixion, Jesus went and preached to "the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey" (3:19-20), and it's not altogether clear just what spirits he had in mind. Later on, however, he is not obscure at all. "The gospel was preached even to the dead," he says, "that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God" (4:5-6).   "He descended into hell," is the way the Apostles' Creed puts it, of course. It has an almost blasphemous thud to it, sandwiched there between the muffled drums of "was crucified, dead, and buried" and the trumpet blast of "the third day he rose again from the dead." Christ of all people, in hell of all places! It strains the imagination to picture it, the Light of the World making his way through the terrible dark to save whatever ones he can. Yet in view of what he'd seen of the world during his last few days in the thick of it, maybe the transition wasn't as hard as you might think.   The fancifulness of the picture gives way to what seems, the more you turn it over in your mind, the inevitability of it. Of course that is where he would have gone. Of course that is what he would have done. Christ is always descending and redescending into hell.   "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden" is spoken to all, whatever they've done or left undone, whichever side of the grave their hell happens to be on.   -Originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words