Monday 25th May - Salvation – Rethinking Heaven and Hell

DAILY BYTE

A wise old colleague of mine used to love to say, “Well, the mortality rate is still 100% you know.” The reason, I think, he used to say this so often is because we live in a culture of such denial.

We like to pretend that the more scary and horrible sides of life don’t exist, and top of all these is the probable likelihood of our own passing. We shut death away into mortuaries and hospitals; we limit our acknowledgement of it to quick in-and-out twenty minute memorial services.

All this denial and pretending that death just-isn’t-so, means that we are not a culture that knows a lot about heaven and hell. In fact, it seems that most Christian’s understanding of heaven and hell seems more rooted in bad ‘Peter and the pearly gates’ jokes, Far-side cartoons, misconceptions and myths than it is in actual Scripture.

As a result, most people just don’t seem to get excited about the concept of heaven, and really it is because we don’t properly understand it that heaven does not grip, stir and inspire us as it should. And as for that ‘other place’ – hell – well, most of us feel far more comfortable denying its existence. It just sounds ghastly, mean, rooted in superstition and plain un-pc. We worry that it knocks the concept of a loving God right off balance.

What’s more, the church hasn’t really helped with this at all. Since Medieval times, the church has tended to promote unreal, watery, pie-in-the-sky concepts of heaven on one hand, and turn-or-burn, graphic images of hell on the other. Some of you may be bearing the scars of these. You may have heard hell talked about in ways that are so manipulative and distorted that it pushes all kinds of buttons in you. I am aware of that, but can you see that this is exactly why it is so important that we do talk about these things?

This is because the mortality rate IS STILL 100%, and so questions like what happens to us when we die, and what should we do about it in the meantime are really important. I am convinced that if we study what the Bible teaches and begin to rethink some of our concepts regarding salvation (most particularly in regard to heaven and hell), then they might begin to grip and inspire us more as they should; and lead us into a deeper and more meaningful hope.

Through the rest of this week we will be dealing with some of the more common misconceptions about heaven and hell that seem prevalent in our society. We will then allow Scripture to guide us forward in our thinking.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Holy God, I give thanks that you are a God who saves us. You have always been reaching out to us and drawing us to you. Help me understand a little more what this means for me – not just for when I die, but also for right here and now. Amen.

FOCUS READING

Psalm 27:1 NRSV

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?