A Matter of Life or Death

One of the main reasons I write this blog is because I want to talk about Jesus to the world.  Most of my work – as teacher, pastor, preacher – is aimed at people who already know Jesus, love Jesus, and want to follow Jesus (if though, sometimes, slowly and reluctantly). 

But out there in internet land are billions of people for whom Jesus is . . . well, I don’t know what you’re all thinking about out there when you do think of Jesus.  So many, I suspect, have a rather casual acquaintance with Jesus – someone to admire, someone whose example is noteworthy – but you are not ready to make the claim that Christians do – Lord, Savior, Christ, Son of God?

I was right there with you for several years of my life.  In my early 20’s I had become a respectful agnostic.  I had grown up the son of missionaries, with a Methodist preacher father, and while I was certainly influenced by the example of Jesus, I had turned my back on all the God-talk of my parents, and cast the church aside for sure.  How could any thinking person believe all that stuff?  I had read Bertrand Russell, and convinced myself I was too sophisticated for religion.

Hah!  Looking back I shake my head at how naïve I was.  Some of history’s greatest minds were unreservedly Christian.  Why?  Not because they came rationally to a conclusion that could be proven, but because they somehow encountered the living God.  I believe that happened to me.  Not in a burning bush, or struck-by-lightning-kind-of-way, but in a growing awareness that there was an authenticity to the life of Jesus – an integrity of word and deed that was unmatched in human history – and I sensed that his presence was still with me, with us, in some indefinable way.  And more importantly, I wanted that same sense of authenticity in my own life, so I made the decision to follow Jesus.  It was not a decision based on reason, but a hunch.

I only partially understood what following Jesus meant back then.  I know better now.  To follow Jesus is not without its pain (the cross is a vivid reminder of what following Jesus means).  But to follow Jesus is also a joy that the world cannot give or take away (the resurrection can be understood as a metaphor for that joy).

Some of you out there think that Christians are only concerned about heaven and hell.  So sad that you have perceived the gospel through the words of too many radio and TV preachers who are but caricatures of the real thing.  Heaven and hell act as symbols for life and death.  The gospel invites us to live, as Jesus says, “abundantly.” (John 10:10)

I am convinced that all of us are either living or dying.  We make decisions every day that are either life-giving or life-taking.  Sometimes by the choices we make the life we are taking is someone else’s.  Sometimes the life we are taking is our own (you know who you are).

But there are those who regularly, consistently, make life-giving decisions.  You speak words that encourage and affirm.  You take actions that enhance the lives of others, sometimes at sacrifice to yourself, and yet it seems a small price to pay.  Such actions prove the paradox of Jesus’ teaching that it is in giving our lives that we find life, as St. Francis of Assisi prayed, “it is in giving that we receive.”  And once in a while there are those words and deeds are in such harmony with each other that we are all ennobled by their example --- we see LIFE in them.

This is what God seeks to give us in Jesus – life to the full.  Life without guilt (forgiveness of sins).  Life without worry (trust).  Life with purpose (sacrifice for others).  Life full of joy (blessing and abundance).

Each Sunday I preach to a congregation.  Each Sunday I believe that what I have to say matters.  Indeed, it is a matter of life and death.  We are all, each one of us, either living or dying.  Jesus came that we may have life.  Why would you NOT choose to follow him?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What the Hell?

If you pay attention to religious news you will have seen some serious controversy over hell. Is it real? Is it literal? Who is going there? Is anyone?

Rob Bell is the pastor of one of those new mega churches and he has written a book that implies that maybe . . . just maybe . . . God is not going to send everyone to eternal punishment. Maybe . . . just maybe . . . God’s love is bigger than we ever imagined.

“What a grievous error!” Shout out some sincere defenders of the faith. The issue is, if we don’t take hell seriously, then we grow slack in our efforts to evangelize the world, and thus the world, as they say, goes to hell (assuming hell is an actual place/existential reality). Point well-taken. We wouldn’t want anyone going to hell because of our theological fuzziness or the complacency of our witness.

A Methodist colleague and student pastor in the eastern part of North Carolina recently was removed from his appointment at the church’s request because, among other things, he agreed with Rob Bell. Obviously, it doesn’t pay to not take hell seriously.

I think Rob Bell has gotten so much attention because of his popularity. He is not saying anything that hasn’t been said before (Phillip Gulley and Robert Mulholland, If God is Love, and If Grace Is True). For that matter, in the early centuries of the church’s history a man named Origen also explored the possibility of universal salvation, and was proclaimed a heretic for his trouble.

Most of us have a vision of hell that is shaped more by Dante’s Inferno, written in the 14th Century, than the hell of scripture. Medieval art gives us vivid images of souls enduring eternal punishment.

Modern sensibility denies such literalism. Jesus did tell parables of judgment, but the argument goes that the images he used were for the purposes of instruction. He used metaphor and hyperbole to make a point. Gehenna, often translated as “hell” was a reference to the Hinnom Valley outside of Jerusalem where everyone took their trash to be burned. You can imagine the smoke always rising from Gehenna, a graphic way to envision an unrepentant life – selfish, sinful, good for nothing but smoke. But did Jesus mean that people were going to literally burn forever in a lake of fire? I find that hard to believe from the same Jesus who in John’s Gospel (3:17) came, “not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.”

Here’s the heart of the matter for me. It is not for me to decide the nature of hell. I have had experiences that felt like hell, and I know people who seem to be going through hell, so I know that much about the reality of it. I also am not in the position to decide who goes to hell and who doesn’t. The whole point of John 14:6 seems to be that it is Jesus who decides (no one comes to the Father but through me). Will Jesus save everyone? I doubt it. Some people are so stubborn they will bite off their own nose to spite their face.
Evil is real. C.S. Lewis said not to take the devil too seriously, but he also reminds us not to take him too lightly, either.

I believe Jesus doesn’t force himself on anyone. There is no vestige of hyper-Calvinism in me. We are always free to reject or accept – to obey or not. That was true in the Garden of Eden, and I assume it is true eternally. No one is brought into the kingdom against their will. Does that mean they are going to hell? I don’t know. Maybe it means they are already in it. Does that mean they will eventually be saved. I don’t know. Jesus is the one who decides. Meanwhile, I keep sharing the good news about a man who is like no man history has ever known – someone who came not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. There is fullness of life in him. I do know that much.

“Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us (Romans 8:34).” Perhaps as long as Jesus is interceding for us there is hope for all of us, come hell or high water.