Avoiding Hell

It caught me off guard...and still leaves me a bit unsettled. It was the first Sunday of Advent and I was doing your run-of-the-mill Advent Children's Sermon. I was talking about bells; about how they can be used to signal a significant event (weddings, church services, etc.) or to tell us to get going (school bells, alarm clocks, etc.) I talked about bells being a part of Advent and Christmas and I asked the children why we might ring bells on November 30. The kids yelled out the wonderful expected answers (and few random ones); "Jesus is coming!" "We're having turkey!" "Come and join us!" But one answer caught my attention in particular, caught me off guard, and grieved me a bit. One boy, with a genuinely stressed look in his eyes, said:

"We need to warn people that Jesus is coming!"

I almost didn't finish the children's sermon. "We've failed," I thought, "here's a boy who has been coming to our church all of his life, and he's evidently scared of Jesus."

God apparently wants me to think about this...because I can't get it out of my head, and it keeps popping up. I've been having an e-mail "conversation" with someone for a little over a month now about whether or not we are living in the end times. He's scared, nervous, and edgy. "We've got to get to word out...about the terrible consequences of remaining asleep. We have to let them know that the times are wicked and evil is powerful so that they can choose the path of Christ." In reading articles and looking for Advent resources, I keep coming across lessons highlighting the "power of secular society" and the teetering Christian faith.

I've written about something like this before...but I guess I'm still working on it. I guess I feel for that little boy because I've been there. I feel for that little boy because I've felt completely inadequate, completely broken, and (as a result) completely terrified of impending judgment. I converted...and kept on converting, never feeling like I quite "had it." I always screwed up...always misstepped...was always (it seemed) a breath away. Not that this really is where my family or church were coming from at all...I have mental albums upon mental albums of bedrock moments of learning and faith from home and our church. But alongside them there were those moments I think all of us who have grown up in church have (sermons, speakers, a camp counsellor obsessed with Revelation) that I remember because, quite frankly, they scared the tar out of me. They made a lasting impact. And so, on my worst days, the earth takes on the shape of an obstacle course filled with peril, the Christian life a tightrope, and discipleship consisted of the things I did out of fear; obligations that allowed me to avoid hell. And on those worst days, whatever I did never felt like enough.

I think a lot of us do it, really...maybe all of us. We avoid hell in our own ways. We punch the clock, deal with our obligations, show up...simply to avoid hell. Some of us try and work our way away from it. We carefully spend our time analyzing, spelling out, and chastising the evils of this world...those who are even further behind than we are. We study the pitfalls, the weaknesses, and the evils and build our walls ever-higher to keep them out. We "defend" the faith." We passionately and vividly describe the power and intensity of the flames so that we might not be victims of their power.

And on our best days, we're something more than just avoiding hell and reading the list of "do's" and "dont's." We see why we do and don't. We see Jesus as a gift instead of just a warning. We proclaim boldly that the darkness will never consume the light. We throw open the doors so that we might share and become more Christ-like together. We see God's hand in this world, working to bring life and go out do everything we can to proclaim it, live it, and spread it...even in strangers. We study Christ and tear down our defenses to give him more of ourselves. We share our faith. We pray, worship, and serve naturally because they are signs of that hope and grace. We hear and follow the most frequent command in the Bible: "Do not fear." We humbly embrace Christ. We bear the light.

We stop thinking about hell...and do everything we can to let God make us a dim, but powerful, little mirror of heaven.