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I wonder if you've come across the story about a certain well known preacher from Northern Ireland. One Sunday, he was in his pulpit thundering on about the terrors of hell. 'There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,' he boomed. An elderly lady in the front row was getting more and more agitated, until at last she burst out: 'What about those that don't have any teeth?' To which the preacher replied: 'Madam, teeth will be provided!'
During this season of Advent, we have been reflecting on the Four Last Things - Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell - in the light of Jesus Christ, and the hope that we are given in Him. This evening, we consider hell, remembering - as we stated in the Apostles' Creed - that Jesus Himself "descended into hell."
It's interesting that, though the Church has largely stopped thinking or talking about hell, the world hasn't. How often you hear people saying 'It's been hell' or 'I went through hell'. Or describing some difficult relationship as being 'sheer hell'.
Hell does seem to be the only language which adequately expresses the awfulness of some experiences of suffering and torture, whether physical or mental. Something so ghastly that it can only be described as being 'hell on earth' or 'a living hell'. The language of hell seems to be the only language which adequately conveys the depth of suffering and alienation, the sense of being in a living nightmare from which there is no escape. If the ultimate reality of hell is also something along these lines, then many in our world today have had more than a glimpse of what hell might finally be like.
But is that really what hell is like? When Jesus spoke of hell, He often used a word - Gehenna - which would have evoked a clear image for many of His listeners. For Gehenna is derived from the place name Gehinnom - the valley of Hinnom - on the south-west slopes of Jerusalem. In ancient times, this valley was the place where children were sacrificed by fire, in connection with pagan rites. By the time of Jesus, Gehenna had come to be used as a garbage dump, and it continually smouldered with a fire which burned away the rubbish.
In Jewish writings Gehenna came to mean the place for the punishment of sinners. It was depicted as being a place of unquenchable fire, that fire of divine judgement we heard referred to in the first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy in these words : "A fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death below" (Deuteronomy 32 : 22).
That fire, that judgement - according to Jesus - had certainly a future dimension, in referring to hell as a final destination. But Jesus also used the picture of Gehenna to speak to the people of His day - and especially the people of Jerusalem - of impending catastrophe for the city. Unless it repented, the whole city would - and eventually did - become a smouldering heap of garbage.
The image of Gehenna was an image which followers of Jesus subsequently used to describe a state of eternal damnation and everlasting agony. To choose hell, therefore, would be to choose the rubbish heap, the place of thrown-away things, with all the pain and regret associated with waste.
The Gospels record Jesus as speaking about hell on several occasions. According to Jesus, hell is indeed a reality to be feared, a place of anguish and remorse. If heaven is where God's presence is fully known and enjoyed, then hell is a state of utter Godlessness. Jesus often used powerful images to make His point. Time and again, He warned His listeners of their need to avoid the fire of hell. For example, in this evening's Gospel reading from Mark chapter 9 : "If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched'" (Mark 9 : 47, 48).
In parable after parable, Jesus also used vivid picture language to warn about the ultimate reality of hell. For example, in Matthew chapter 25, the parable of the sheep and the goats contrasts the glorious destiny of the righteous with what the condemned will face: "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels … Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life" (Matthew 25 : 41, 46). Or again, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus Jesus pictured hell as being a terrible state of agony and of final separation : "In hell, where (the rich man) was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side" (Luke 16 : 23).
In these and other parables, Jesus spoke of hell, and He contrasted it with heaven. And, just as heaven could be glimpsed and anticipated in the here and now, so hell would be the ultimate consequence of selfish choices made in this life. Those who only 'look after no. 1' are in real danger of being left utterly alone with 'no 1.' As T.S. Eliot put it in his poem The Cocktail Party:
"What is hell? Hell is oneself,
Hell is alone, the other figures in it
Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from
And nothing to escape to. One is always alone."
Hell has often been pictured in vivid colours. Yet if hell is a state of Godlessness - where the light, and life, and love of God are not present - perhaps hell should not be painted red for heat and torment, but rather grey for sheer boredom. In his book The Great Divorce, CS Lewis describes hell as a grey and dreary town, so insignificant in its diminished reality that it is lost down a crack in the floor of heaven. Every so often the inhabitants of hell are offered a bus trip up to the heavenly realm, to see if they would like to stay and live there permanently. When they arrive, they find the bright reality of heaven is very painful for them to bear - even the grass is so real that it cuts their feet. In heaven they also have to face the reality of what their lives have been, and to be willing to follow the path to liberty and life. Sadly, most of the visitors are unwilling to do so. And, at the end of the day, they get on the bus to return to the subterranean greyness of hell.
What Scripture very clearly teaches is that each and every one of us has the capacity to sentence ourselves to separation, even eternal separation, from the One who loves us eternally. Heaven requires consent. As Helen Oppenheimer points out, God is not like 'a mythical mother at the sea-side: "I brought you here to enjoy yourselves, and enjoy yourselves you shall!"' Perhaps, as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, suggests in his book Tokens of Trust: "The most truthful image we can have of hell is of God eternally knocking on a closed door that we are struggling to hold shut."
A while ago, another clergyman in the area shared with me his own belief that Adolf Hitler would sit down with Mother Theresa in the heavenly banquet, that all would be saved, and that hell would finally be empty. But will hell finally be empty? On the one hand, it is clear from Scripture that God's will is that all should be saved. Think, for example, of Paul's statement in 1 Timothy 1 chapter 2 : "God our Saviour .. wants all .. to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2 : 3, 4). It is the presence of hints like this in Scripture, as well as the creeping liberalism of the last two centuries, which has caused universalism - the belief that all will be saved - to gain such popularity in western Christianity. However, it is hard to reconcile this with other passages of Scripture which speak of the very real danger of hell, and of our freedom to choose finally to reject God's love for us in Christ. If we seek to take the Bible seriously, then we have somehow to hold both truths together, without cutting any knots.
We certainly find these truths held together in the Book of Revelation, where - in Chapters 21 and 22 - even in that glorious and moving vision of the New Jerusalem, the renewed heaven and earth, there are still some who are "outside .. those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practises falsehood" (Revelation 22 : 15). For such as these, we are told that "their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death" (Revelation 21 : 8).
As the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, points out in his book For All the Saints? : "It is hard to see how we can ignore such passages .. without being accused of trimming our theology to suit the prevailing desire to be nice to everybody, never to say anything which implies that someone might be in danger. Equally, we should remind ourselves that from the New Jerusalem in Revelation 22 there flows the river of the water of life, on whose banks grow trees, the tree of life; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. There are mysteries here we should not reduce to simplistic formulae."
If hell represents our freedom to say 'No' to God, to turn our back on the source and goal of life, and light, and love, the question then is this : Will God finally take no for an answer? As Tom Wright points out, there are mysteries here. We simply don't know. What you and I can be sure of is this Gospel truth: "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him" (John 3 : 16, 17).
In the Prayer Book version of the Apostles Creed, we have affirmed that Jesus Christ "descended into hell." Perhaps some of you can remember the Malvern Mystery Play that was staged here in the Priory in 2000? For me, one of the most moving scenes was that known as the Harrowing of Hell. A growing light signified Christ's entry 'to break the darkness of Satan's land' and to lead the dead, from Adam and Eve onwards, into heaven's light. This picture reminds us that in Jesus Christ, our merciful Redeemer and Judge, God invites everyone to open the door to His love, love that knows no limits. Perhaps you have heard the story of the children who were once asked this question by their Sunday School teacher : 'Why did Jesus spend three days in hell?' After a few moments silence, one of the children gave this answer : 'Because He was looking for Judas.'
Death. Judgement. Heaven. Hell. The Four Last Things. As we conclude this Advent series, may you and I do so knowing the assurance of the Gospel hope deep within us. May this God-given hope strengthen and sustain us through life's inevitable ups and downs. And, finally, in the face of our own death, and all that lies beyond it, may we at last rejoice to know fully and completely the wonderful truth that "neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8 : 38, 39).
John Barr
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