What if Hell is Empty?

What if Hell is Empty? 

For the sake of transparency, “What if Hell Is empty?” isn’t a question I actually ask during this sermon, but it’s a question I’ve long asked. One reason for this is the idea that the credal confessions that “Jesus descended to hell” occupy an interesting space in Christianity tradition in the form of the idea that Jesus died and then went to take God’s Grace and glory to the famed in what we call the Harrowing of Hell. 

The scriptures this week invite us to wrestle with our imperfection’s and brokenness, and our ability to love each other imperfectly. We ask the question, what does it mean when we say God loves us perfectly? If God loves us beyond understanding, and we sinful imperfect people can learn to love each other, what must God’s perfect love look like? What if Hell really IS empty?

Transcript

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On Sunday mornings, we actually have an opportunity for three lessons. And a lot of times I don't we we don't do all three lessons because you know it's one way we can cut a little bit of time here and there. But also because a lot of times I I have trouble seeing how to weave all three together. But this week there was a really hard choice because I really like that lesson from 1 Peter, because 1 Peter has this question about well, what harm is there in doing good? Who's gonna hurt you for doing something good? Well, the answer is, you know, that we have adages like no good deed goes unpunished. And, you know, there it turns out that there are people who are gonna be pretty upset with us for doing things that are good, in part because those also, a lot of times, are the people who would rather us do things that aren't good for us. And I think we've all dealt with trying to do what we believe is right and having friends or people we were spending time with who weren't necessarily great influences in that way, at least at that time in their lives. The other thing that I thought was so important about 1 Peter was this idea about what happens when Jesus dies. Because, you know, we talk a lot about Jesus' death and resurrection. We don't talk a lot about dead Jesus, and that's because dead Jesus is like dead everybody, kind of boring, at least as far as we can tell. But 1 Peter brings up something that becomes a doctrine in the Catholic Church, and that probably Martin Luther would have agreed with, called the harrowing of hell, which is like amazing because of alliteration, the two H's, harrowing of hell, and also the word harrowing is kind of fun. But what's that mean? What is Jesus doing? When we say the Apostles' Creed, we say that Jesus descended to the dead. And in the previous versions in the green book, it was descended into hell. And so, like, that always sounded weird. Because why would Jesus descend into hell? Well, part of that, what we understand, is what is the whole idea of the harrowing of hell that 1 Peter talks about. Jesus doesn't just die and then stay still. Jesus goes to the place where people who have suffered because of their choices are. Jesus goes to the place where people who were disobedient to God's commandments and who ended up suffering for their choices and names, in particular, the people who were killed in the flood, the people who we thought were lost and left out, the people who were not part of the eight who were Noah and his family. You know, all the wicked people who must be destroyed, who obviously God didn't like. But isn't it interesting how frequently we say God loves everybody, and how readily we'll accept the idea that God might love everybody, but there are certain people that God decides have to suffer. And so this idea of Jesus descending into hell, while it's like weird to say and problematic to think of without a lot of explanation, the idea that Jesus goes to the place where people are suffering, whatever that looks like, and preaches the good news of God's love, it tells us something about God's intention for what salvation is. And I think it runs counter to a lot of what we hear in our culture that tells us that, you know, Jesus is really after me, or even I'm gonna pick on our first hymn, even though I actually really enjoy it, or the first contemporary song we sang, even though I really enjoyed it. What did Jesus think about? Jesus was thinking about me. And, you know, the the whole song is really good. And I got to that line and I was like, wait a minute, Jesus was thinking about me? Is it is it me that Jesus was trying to please? Is it me that Jesus was concerned about? Like that, you know, Jesus as God, sure, God loves me. But like me? That that's something that I wrestle with, not because I don't think I'm lovable, you know, obviously I must be lovable. But like, it's more because I think that God has God things to do. You know, we also say in the creeds that God is the creator of the of all things, seen and unseen. And if God is creating all things, seen and unseen, like if God is really focused in on everything that I'm doing, one, that makes me nervous. Two, like, there's a lot that God needs to be doing. I don't know exactly what to do with that. I think God could do that. I wrestle with God whether God would choose to do that. And I and I also think this idea, Jesus was thinking about me, goes into one of the problems that we face as people who live in our culture, which is very focused on me and encourages each of us to be focused on ourselves. You know, this individual idea of salvation that so much of American Christianity preaches, and certainly is more popular in the media, that somehow it's about me and Jesus walking together. And somehow, if I'm not walking right, then Jesus is particularly angry at me. And this gospel where Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments, it certainly sounds like something that that's reasonable to get to. And there's also the understanding that comes from the rest of John, that Jesus and John in particular isn't so concerned about saving individual people, but John presents Jesus as this cosmic Messiah. John presents Jesus as the one who redeems the entirety of creation. And as much as it might be our habit, as we confess every week, to do things that draw us away from God and to seek to be closer to God, it's God's tendency to draw creation back out of love. And that's why I thought the harrowing of hell was worth mentioning. It's because we see clearly through Scripture in Old Testament and New Testament, throughout the entire book of the Bible, that God's desire is the redemption of all creation. And it always is hard for me to think about well, if it's God's desire that all creation be redeemed, and God's the one creating it, and it seems like, at least sometimes, being God should mean like God gets what God wants. How could there be so much of creation that's beyond God's desire for redemption? And that's one of the things I like so much about that little weird doctrine, is it it gives me something to consider about even in those moments when I feel lost, and when I feel empty, and I feel like whatever it is within me isn't redeemable, maybe there's something God can harrow in me too. And so we we get to Paul in this third lesson that I mentioned at the beginning. Excuse me. And this text is smaller than what my uh almost 50-year-old eyes like, but I don't have my reading glasses with me. So I'm if I trip over a word or two, please forgive me. But it starts at uh verse 22. So then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription to an unknown God. What therefore you worship is unknown. This I proclaim to you, the God who has made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is God served by human hands as though needing anything. And the subtext is like your God's. Since God, God's self gives to all mortals life and death and all things. And from an ancestor, God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and God allotted the time of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for God and find God, though indeed God is not far from each one of us. For in God we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, for we too are God's offspring. So since we're God's offspring, we ought not think about, think that the deity that the deity is like gold or silver, or that the deity is made of stone, an image formed by art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now God commands all people everywhere to repent. Because God has fixed a day on which God will have the world judged in righteousness by a man who God has appointed, Jesus, and of this God has given assurance to all by raising Jesus from the dead. And so there's this interesting space here where Paul, who's always looking for an angle, and always has been, that part of him kind of remained pretty constant. And Paul's a great example of the fact that God doesn't seek to change what's fundamental about us. What God seeks when we hear the word repentance isn't that we change who we are, because God sees us, knows us, and loves us, even though God knows that we're not perfect. What Paul is saying is God has a plan for us even in our imperfection. Even when God is unknown, even when God is simply an idea that we can only imagine because we find that there's something lacking in the gods that we've been presented. And our modern culture, as much as we claim to be monotheistic, worshiping one God, you know, America, Christian nation, and all that stuff, we do tend to be a people with many, many gods. Worship is an investment of our time and our energy and our resources. How much of our time and energy and our resources do we trade for money? How much of our time and energy and resources do we trade for comfort? Whether it's physical comfort or emotional comfort or ethical comfort, so that we don't have to change who we are because we've decided who we are, and you know, we've decided who everyone else should be, and so why should we be uncomfortable for everyone else to be who they are? We do. We are a culture, just like every culture of many gods. And so, how do we discern the one? Like I asked the kids, how do we figure out who's our friend? And in a gospel that starts out, well, if you love me, you'll follow your follow my commandments. It's not so different than those things we heard as kids, is it? But as I said to the kids, so I say to all of us, we can tell who our friends are by what they ask. What does it mean to love Jesus? What does it mean to obey Jesus? Love God. Love each other. And what does God promise? God promises that even in our failure, God still loves us. Not because we're perfect, certainly not that. Not because we're necessarily always good at listening, because we, I think if we look at any of our lives, we know that we have plenty of time not listening well. Not because we're particularly successful at some of the things we want for even our own self-improvement, but in the same way we we look at imperfect parents. Or in the same way that we look at our imperfect children, or in the same way we look at our friends who sometimes disappoint us. Or the same way, hopefully, we learn to look in the mirror and see the face of ourselves, it disappoints us sometimes too. Love is worthwhile, even though the ones we love are imperfect. And we don't love because of what people can give so much. As much as we we tend to love those who are close to our heart for whatever reason, whether it's parents or mothers like today, or whether it's our kids or our friends, we all love imperfect people. If we can love imperfect people, how much more will God, who loves perfectly, be able to love us imperfect people? And so I think today we hear the words of Paul, not as words to someone 2,000 years ago, to the Athenians, but we can hear those words today for ourselves, knowing how much we have deconstructed the actual meaning of what it means to follow and love Jesus into this whole sort of me and Jesus walking together. I saw on a post from my home in South Carolina one more person holding a sandwich board of all the things that God must hate. And not a word on that sandwich board of God's love or grace. Repent doesn't mean that do this because God is angry. Repent is a word of grace and hope. Turn away from those things that stick us to ourselves, that separate us from other people, that separate us from the love of God, that keep us in our pain, that keep us isolated, that tell us how important what I want is, that tell us that I need those things that are bad for me, that tell us that only I can fix the things that are wrong and just keep me inside of my head. And imagine when I say me, you're hearing me like you. But instead, repentance is turning toward the love that God has for us. Me and you, but the love God has for creation, for all things, for all people. As we hear the words of Paul speaking about a God whose name we may think we know, but who remains mysterious and somewhat unknown. Because there's something in us that fights and argues with the idea that God might love us or that we're worthy of love. Because for whatever reason, sometimes it's so much easier to believe that we're not lovable. So this week, as we go out, hear the words of what love means to Jesus love God. Love each other. If you love me, obey my commandments. And I'll offer this in the context of the way that God offered it to Moses and the Israelites. If you obey and honor my statutes and commandments, then all these blessings will fall upon you because of that faithfulness. And it's interesting this phrase fall upon you. Because it isn't, I will give you all these things for being nice. It's more along the lines of if you honor these commandments, and most of them are the ones we know, right? Don't kill people. All right? Don't steal things. That makes sense. Don't desire to take what belongs to somebody else. Okay. And why not? Because when you do those things, you make other people angry with you. You ruin your own life and their life and the lives of your family who's deprived of you because of what you've done. It's not because God's gonna particularly rain wrath down upon you, but because there's something in this love of God that allows us the consequences of our choices when we're jerks. And that's why the other half comes if you don't obey these statutes and commandments and all these bad things will fall upon you. And so obeying Jesus isn't because Jesus is going to somehow love us specially if we follow those commandments. Loving Jesus and being a friend of Jesus in this obedience is a way that we can find a life that has good things in it, that has love in it, that has relationships in it that can grow stronger, and that has the promise for a new life within ourselves, not just in some resurrection at the end of time, but day after day, every time we seek it. Amen.