In a book entitled Peculiar Treasures, the renowned novelist and spiritual writerFrederick Buechner reflects on the character of Judas, the man who betrayed Jesus with a kiss and then died by suicide.

Buechner, who had lost his own father to suicide, speculates on the reasons why Judas dies by suicide. Referring to an ancient church tradition, he suggests that perhaps Judas chose suicide out of hope instead of despair, that is, he felt dammed and counted on Jesus’ mercy after death, thinking that perhaps “hell might be his last chance of making it to heaven.” 

Then, imagining Jesus’ descent into hell, Buechner writes: “It’s a scene to conjure with. Once again they met in the shadows, the two old friends, both of them a little worse for wear after all that had happened, only this time it was Jesus who was the one to give the kiss, and this time it wasn’t the kiss of death that was given.” (Jeffrery Munroe, Reading Buechner, InterVarsity Press)

As Christians, as very article of faith in our Creeds, we believe that after his death Jesus “descended into hell.” What’s meant by that?

The popular conception of this in the language of our catechesis, in our iconography, and in Christian piety, might be summarized this way. After the sin of Adam and Eve, ‘original sin,’ the gates of heaven were closed, so that from the time of Adam and Eve until the death of Jesus, no one could go to heaven. However, in his death, Jesus atoned for our sins and during the time between his death on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday, he went to that place in the underworld, Sheol, where all the good people who had died throughout history were waiting and he led them into heaven. This was his “descent into hell.”

But, whatever the literal truth in that popular conception, there’s a powerful theological truth undergirding the doctrine. In essence it’s this: The love and compassion that Jesus manifested in his death has the power to go into hell itself, that is, there is no “hell” (physical, psychological, or spiritual) we can create that Christ’s love cannot penetrate so as to offer healing for the very wound which caused that hell itself.

God’s love, healing, and forgiveness can penetrate any hell we can create and heal the wound that caused that hell.

This is perhaps the single most consoling doctrine not just in Christianity but in all religion. When we are powerless to help others or ourselves, God can still help us.

It’s for this reason that Christians don’t believe in reincarnation. It isn’t needed. We don’t need to get ourselves completely right to go to heaven. When we are powerless, God can still do for us what we can’t do for ourselves.

That’s a deep consolation because not everyone dies a happy death. Many of us die in anger, in bitterness, not fully reconciled with others, with unfinished business of soul. And some of us die by suicide, imprisoned in a private hell where, due to illness and wound rather than moral fault, we believe our death is our only way to life.

The doctrine of Jesus’ descent into hell is particularly helpful regarding how we might understand how those who die by suicide are met by God after their deaths. For too long we have been falsely anxious about this, fearing that suicide is a grave human and moral failure, an act of despair, unforgiveable (certainly on this side of eternity). However, in most cases, it is an illness, one not freely chosen. Like cancer, a heart attack, or an accident, it takes someone out of life against his or her committed choice. For this reason, we are encouraged to no longer use the phrase “committed suicide.” Nobody “commits” cancer or “commits” a heart attack. He or she “succumbs” to it. So too for most suicides.

With this in mind, we can better appreciate the image Frederick Buechner uses in speculating about the suicide of Judas’ and his meeting with Jesus in hell.

In essence, this is Buechner’s image: After his betrayal of Jesus, Judas descends into a private hell wherein he senses that what he has done cannot be forgiven and he is doomed forever to live in that darkness. That falsity, that illness, that fatally misguided logic tells him that going to hell is his last chance of going to heaven. So, he takes his own life. After his death, Jesus meets him in the shadows of that misguided hell and kisses him, not in condemnation or damnation, but in unconditional love, understanding, and forgiveness.

This image, I believe, can help us understand what happens in suicide: the misguided logic of those taking their own lives, and God’s loving, compassionate, forgiving, invitational descent into their private hell within which they believe their deaths are a favor to their loved ones and that “hell might be their last chance to go to heaven.”