Hell.
It is a very southern word. It is very important not only to our theology but also to our daily language. Hell is an all around good cussword, good for a point of emphasis and favorite topic for Sunday School and bill boards.
Part of being southern is a firm belief in hell, or for a few a firm rejection of hell, either way it is a point of emphasis for all who are for it or against it.
Not that it does us much good, just that when we are getting in trouble we say, “I’m going to hell for sure this time.”
Believing in Hell is very different from treating it like a curiosity or a point of debate. I think it has an important role in shaping southern character, along with other things like BBQ and hospitality and arguing over the war, the flag and evolution.
But believing in Hell isn’t really the point. The point is believing in God’s final judgment of all things, all nations, all people, all relationships, all institutions. The point isn’t about hell, whether its true or not, what its like, who goes and who doesn’t. The point is that there is ultimate justice, an ultimate settling and accounting, a final reckoning.
We say it in our ancient creedal statement of belief, the Nicene Creed, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”
And rather than being a topic for horror movies and paranormal thrillers, this belief in God’s judgment is all about hope, a tremendous and holy hope in a world that can be very scary.
The belief in God’s judgment is an act of faith and trust. God can be trusted to bring things out right in the end when God’s Kingdom arrives in all its fullness.
In the mean time we live with a certain kind of hope that is so strong that we live as if the kingdom were here already. That is where the commandment to love our enemies comes from, as well as the power to forgive, it comes from that future hope that we will be reconciled, and since we know that we will be reconciled, then we are reconciled now in the present, retroactive reconciliation. All Christians are really time travelers, we’re all living back to the future. The death and Resurrection of Christ is that powerful.
All the apocalyptic writings in the old and new testament are all about this particular kind of hope and trust in God while struggling in a world that is full of fear and violence. This Sunday and next Sunday are the end of the Christian year and part of how we mark this time is by looking ahead to the final things. The first Sunday of Advent, two weeks from now, the beginning of the Christian year, also begins the year with similar apocalyptic scriptures. So we are in a mini-apocalyptic season that crosses over the ending and beginning of the Christian year, just as the great hope in God’s judgment crosses over the endings and beginnings of all things. This is how we begin and end, hoping and trusting in God setting things right.
In fact the word, apocalypse, means unveiling, when we see things clearly, when we gain the perspective of faith and hope that comes from God’s judgment.
Gaining perspective, that is what the Christian apocalypse is all about, the perspective of hope.
There are really two different Christianities when it comes to God’s judgment.
One perspective, which is that of many fundamentalists, is that God’s judgment is all about punishment and reward, it is primarily punitive, and the world is destroyed.
The other Christianity, the kind that I believe in, holds that God’s judgment is ultimately about restoration and renewal, all people and relationships will be restored and healed to how they ought to be, and the world isn’t destroyed but rather changed, renewed, restored and healed, physical existence becomes even more physical. C. S. Lewis writes of this with his vivid story telling.
This holy hope that comes with the deep perspective of trusting in God’s judgment is contrary to so much of how we are taught to live. We are taught to be fatalistic about all the conflicts and pain in life resulting in how we usually do thing, “We’re never going to get along so we might as well end the relationship, or start a war, or commit murder, or slander,” or “Since things are never going to change we might as well give in to the powerful and abandon or exploit the weak and helpless.”
Rather than giving into fatalism and the iniquity that it breeds, this holy hope bids us to live not as if our relationships are forever broken, but rather retroactively reconciled. We also have the strength to stand before the powerful and pronounce their shame for abusing and abandoning those who are vulnerable and weak, reminding them that the kingdom is coming and they need to get right with God and stop standing against God’s purpose before they run out of time.
A holy and lively hope gives us the endurance by which we gain our souls.
Hope, it’s a hell of a good word.
Let’s put it up on billboards and talk about it in Sunday School.
More than that, let’s do more than talk about it. Let’s believe in it, let’s live in it, let’s practice the ways of hope.