Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Peter chapter 3 verses 18 through 20:
18For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you* to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, 20who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water.
There is an old saying -- which some attribute to David Bowie -- "Religion is for those who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for those who have already been there."
Christ descended into hell. More than just a line in the Apostles' Creed, this is a promise for everyone who has been to hell and back, or is in some kind of hell right now, or is raising some hellion of a child who soon will be.
The Christ will be there. Christ will be present there there. Christ will sit and hold hands, and shiver out in the car there.
I've been watching the series Dopesick. That's where the idea of shivering comes from -- from junkies shivering out in cold in the car on some dead end street. Drugs are hell. And anybody who loves somebody on drugs are living it too.
But Christ doesn't give up on anybody. Christ doesn't condemn anybody. We condemn ourselves -- sometimes to hell or to prison. But the Christ has been to both places.
Christ has been to hell and back a million times because a million times is what it took.
He'll go again.
And the soul will know its worth.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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