Sermon: "Going to Hell: A Reconsideration
February 2, 2003
by Kendall H. Brown
Mark 1: 21-28 "Jesus' Authority"
Basically, the title in the bulletin this morning is simply a long shot
at the possibility of keeping a couple of you awake for at least the first
minute or two of the sermon.
The eye catchiness of the title, however, belies the greater seriousness
of the subject.
I have made sure that we have the "right" version of the Apostles' Creed
in our worship today, because my thought process starts with the words
in the ancient creed:
"…crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into
hell;…"
I sometimes spend time asking crazy questions like, "Why would Jesus
have to descend into hell.."
Wasn't it bad enough that he died on the cross?
I learned through the study of Greek in Seminary that Jesus' last words,
"It is finished," do not mean simply "the end has come." But the
words carry a greater significance, meaning, "It is completed."
"It is finished." "It is completed."
If Jesus' work was brought to completion on the cross, why was there
any further need for any more horrible assignments for the son of God after
the cross – including something as vile as a 3 day tour of hell?
The longer I am in ministry, the clearer what that going to hell stuff
was all about.
Having said that, I hope this is not the Sunday morning when I am supposed
to be encouraging young people to consider ministry as a career.
The mystery of Jesus' holiday in the Devil's Domain has something to
do with a central theme in today's lesson.
That is the theme of authority.
Jesus' willingness to descend into the pits of Hell is at the very heart
of that which gives him his authority as Lord and Savior.
I have learned this not from books, seminars, classes and research.
I have learned this from the privilege of sharing Jesus' ministry.
Authority and authenticity go hand in hand. Without authenticity
there is no authority.
Those moments in ministry when I have felt myself to be the most authentic
in ministry…..
…..when I have known the power of ministerial authority in the most tangible
way
…..have always been those very times when I have gone to be with another
person in their hell – whatever that hell might be.
In fact, it seems that the further one goes.…
….the deeper one goes,
…. along the side of another into their hell
-the more tangible and obviously authentic one's own authority becomes.
I share a few of those pastoral moments…
There was the year when I spent hours – even days – with Tina and her
family.
Tina was a 13 year old girl dying of leukemia. Her disease was
incredibly painful. Etched in my mind, on a par with the picture
of the twin towers of Sept. 11, is the memory of going to the hospital to
find Tina one day. I didn't have to ask where she was. All I
had to do was follow the sound of her horrible screaming down two long hospital
hallways and a flight of stairs to find her in the CAT scan machine.
In every minute of those long hours and days with Tina, I knew there
was no place else on earth where I was supposed to be. In any other
place accept with her, my ministry would have been inauthentic. It
was a trip to hell but in it all, the gaining of the self knowledge of pastoral
authority.
There have been several trips into the agonies of hell at the side of
mothers struggling with all the grief and heart wrenching torment of being
a mother to their daughters who were making the choice to have abortions.
I would have just as soon have been just about anywhere else.
But when those mothers walked into my life and asked me to be by their
sides in their hells, any other response but the affirmative would have
rendered my ministry inauthentic and without authority.
There was the walk I took one day in the woods with Chet and our family
dog, King. King was this prissy little poodle who every one in the
church loved and who was frequently found assisting me in the church study.
Chet had lymphoma, which took his life after a five year fight.
That walk was the last time I was with him without his disease being the
dominating and distracting presence in our togetherness.
And in every minute I spent with Chet in all the hell of his disease,
there was nowhere else where I might have been with more authenticity and
authority as a pastor.
It seems that to love as Jesus loved, we must go places we would otherwise
choose to avoid.
It also seems that the more hellish the place of ministry, the more love
the spirit finds to move through us in those places. The more authority
we have as Christians.
People are in hell in a lot of places –
Sometimes geographically-
like in jail
Sometimes in their bodies -
Like the Aids patient
Sometimes in their minds –
Like the drug or alcohol addict
Sometimes in their sexuality –
Like the gay person thinking the only way out of the
closet is through the door of suicide
Sometimes in the circumstances of life –
Like the impoverished
Sometimes in their families –
Like the abandoned spouse
People are in hell all around us, and the authenticity – the authority
– of our Christian love is in our willing-ness to be with them.
This week is UCC Women's Week. Perhaps one of the most authentic
things in many of our lives is our mothers' love for us.
That unconditional love combined with a willingness to go anywhere –
even to hell to be with another – is what gives a mother's love and Christian
love the power of authority and authenticity.
The incarnation is what gives God's love its authority and authenticity.
God's love is made real (authentic) and given power (authority) by God's
becoming one of us and I think even more importantly being with us.
That is what the bread of life is all about.
Eat from this table and go from this place into the world to be real
in love to others.