I was VERY worried about last Sunday's sermon. We've started a sermon series on people's awkward questions about faith, and unfortunately quite a few of the questions submitted were about hell. Who goes there. Whether it's fair that God sends people there. You know, really easy questions like that. I often get nervous before preaching these days, but yesterday I quite literally broke out into a cold sweat as my nervous system went into meltdown and I hoped that, as has proved to be the case time and again, I would be all right once I started speaking. For some reason it's the anticipation that gets me; once I start, I go into the zone.
It didn't help that I had been talking with some minister friends a few days before I was due to preach and, when they heard the topic I would be tackling, they looked very concerned and started giving me advice. Oh dear, I thought, this is clearly something no one ever preaches on voluntarily. Too late, though - no time to write a new sermon.
I spent one week during my first year at theological college reading and writing an essay about hell. I have rarely spent a more anxious week. It's a topic you have to consider at some point as a Christian - after all, Jesus does mention hell a fair bit - but one that no one enjoys dwelling on. The process of writing the sermon was similarly depressing. In fact, I would go so far as to say oppressive. I'm not one to dwell on spiritual warfare too much: there are plenty of ways in which human beings can be messed up and can mess up our world without resorting to demonic explanations most of the time. This week, however, I did find myself wondering how healthy it is to dwell on issues to do with hell. It's uncomfortable, but not in a good way. Sometimes God challenges us and we feel uncomfortable, but we know that it's because the Holy Spirit is prompting us to lead better lives. I suspect that most people need to think about hell less, not more, however. The most important thing that any of us can ever know is that God is love. He is merciful, he is kind, he is gracious. He does not punish us as we deserve, as we read in Psalm 103.
To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, I suspect there are two equal and opposite errors into which people fall when considering hell and judgement (not the same thing, as one of my minister friends helpfully pointed out). One is to think there is no judgement, no ultimate accountability; that we can live our lives exactly as we please and there will be no consequences of our choices (whatever we understand by heaven and hell). The other is to worry so much about judgement and whether we or someone we love might go to hell that we miss the fact that God is love, and fail to live the life in all its fullness which he brings.
When it comes to hell, I take Shane Claiborne's view. He writes in The Irresistible Revolution that he doesn't worry about hell because he knows how much he doesn't want people to go there, and he also knows that God is infinitely kinder, more merciful and more loving than him. Amen to that.
The problem is when we spend time focusing on ourselves. Look at God's character. He is a God of love, a God of mercy, but also a God of justice. If you look at Him in the context of the Old Testament you can see that the people who get splatted because God has had enough of their behaviour are those who have actively rejected Him and are deliberately pursuing lives contrary to everything He stands for. They have turned their backs on Him. In a modern context, why should those who have turned their backs on God expect to avoid judgement. God's gift of grace is available to all, because of God's love and mercy.
ReplyDeleteMartin Luther, as a young monk was desperately in fear of God's judgement until his study of the original Greek showed him that his salvation was assured through Jesus and through God's grace.
Because God is a just God it would not make sense if there was no sanction against those who reject Him. Otherwise everyone could do exactly what they like and think it didn't matter because we will all be rewarded with the joys of eternity. It would make a mockery of God. ...and we are told that God is not mocked.