Nobody Cares Like Jesus
Good Morning Friends,
Yesterday we sang an anthem Psalm 139, that asked the question about where we can hide from God. It reminded me of the children’s book Runaway Bunny. It was a preparation for the sermon on the Wheat and Tares…the good seed and the bad weeds and the reality that they are hard to tell apart until the harvest when the wheat bows low in submission while the weeds stand tall for the angles to gather and burn. One of the questions prompted by the anthem was about Jesus being in hell and us being there too. I immediately thought about the Apostles Creed and Jesus descending into hell. And certainly he does come into our little hell… hades but I am not so sure about the big HELL to come at the final judgment. Scripture speaks about two hells. The first is really Hades…Sheol that place depicted in the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. It has two parts…divided…Paradise…the one Jesus mentions on the cross to the repentant thief and the second place… a place of torment. Catholics I believe divide this place into four. But none of these are the final hell. Now I suppose one can be a saved agnostic about whether the final hell is one of eternal conscious punishment or annihilation of the wicked. One approach seems so callous, even uncaring position towards the wicked and the other driven by emotion alone. It all makes me wonder why Jesus was so tough on the Pharisees who did believe in life after death and not so much the Sadducees who believed that death was the end of it all. Still I have a problem with the torture of souls of the unsaved for an eternity. God is just and loving both. Still, I am not a Universalist in the purest sense. When I would go into the local jails to share the Gospel it was kind of like going into hell. When I left I had no desire to physically free the inmates. Maybe God calls us to go into others places of hell as an act of love to free people spiritually. Here in the presence of His gaze and His love offered it is easy to believe that Nobody Cares Like Jesus.
Scripture: ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.
So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 13: 47-50 (NRSV)
Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”
Luke 16:26 (NRSV)
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
1 Peter 3:18-20 (NRSV)
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:36-39 (NRSV)
Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
Psalm 139: 7-12 (NRSV)
Message: Dante really messed up everyone’s understanding of Sheol/ hades, that place of blessing and judgment referred to in the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19-31). Sometimes scriptures depicts hell as separation from God, which is intolerable in and of itself to think about. At other times hell is seen as dire punishment. What we believe though is that Jesus descended into the abyss and in death…in our human darkness of depression, and in the depths of our dementia in Hades saw what it meant to be fully God and fully human. Here all things past, present and future, real and potential converge in the knowledge beyond our illusion of time and place. Here in God’s omnipresence we are to be comforted as well as frightened, for God has given us the gift of life. And when we realize how wonderful life is, we also realize we cannot hide from His all seeing eye. And it is here as we are seemingly incapable of responding…it is here we depend on God’s grace. It is here in the comforting reality of an all knowing God we seek refuge. It is here we discover there is nothing to fear for God knows us and still loves us. God knows us and still desires to be with us. And here once we have a vision of the majesty and the greatness of God…once we take ownership of our own smelly depravity…once we have experienced His mercy and restoring grace then we might be able to decide. Friends, once His Spirit knows us, that Spirit is with us wherever we go… even in our darkness, especially in our darkness- a place where we must not avoid the presence and love of God. So why do we try to hide? Why do we say it cannot be done? Why do we choose darkness? Why do we fear? We must confess that when God reveals himself to us and claims us, it is clear that there is no place to hide but in Him. We know that God is Omnipresent and Omniscient. We know that God can do all things. We know that God is light. We know that God will protect us. We know that God is in every moment, in every second, every sunrise and sunset, in the noon day and the darkest night. Most importantly God is in the deepest struggle of our hearts. He exist in this dark place at the point of our conversion… submission. Friends the Spirit of God is with us each and every day as we face the choices of good or bad, obedience or rebellion, love or selfishness, life or death. Here we might realize that we all need God to do in us what He did for Jesus…raise us from the dead…for we are dead in our sin. Friends, in our zeal and enthusiasm, we do not have to climb to heaven to recruit God… we do not have to go to hell to rescue Him. He is right here. And our darkness cannot hide us. We are in the womb waiting to be born.
Pray that we give up trying to hide from God. Pray that we learn to enjoy His presence…His joy…His love. Pray that we run to God each day on the wings of the dawn. Pray that we want to be where God is today. Pray that we want to dwell daily in His presence. Pray that we run away from sin and into His arms. Pray we are humble. Pray we
fix our gaze on the penetrating purity of the holiness of God. Pray we find His holiness in those places we think have been separated from God. Pray we abide in Christ and in repentance experience victory over sin. Pray His brightness burn into our lives in such a way that the image never fade from our vision. Pray we find His holiness irresistible.
Pray that the love of Jesus in us be trusted and in unity the body of believers prevail over even the gates of hell. Pray that we at last acknowledge that the power of love at work within us is able to do far more that all we ask or even think. Pray that all this be to the glory of God even as we pray for a new heaven and a new earth.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 