On Hell

Hell has been thought to be a place of fire and brimstone, because of the verse where Jesus says that the wheat will be separated from the tares during the harvest, and the bad will be thrown into the fire.

This has been misused fire itself, and has caused much pain between brethren, even though Christ came to comfort us. I assert that those substantially different, purgatory is also a fire, and can feel like our understanding of hell. Yet we all experience purgatory: it is the trials that hurt us deeply, but then we rise from them and become stronger and more efficient. Fire refines us, and this can be shown in numerous Bible passages.

We are taught that there is one act that can keep us in an eternal fire, and this is called "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit": the rejection of God. To follow through with God's laws and commandments, are not enough - if we do not love one another, then our works are dead: we are not saved.

John warns us that he who does not love one another remains in death. Jesus is love, so to reject love and compassion, is to reject the Christ.

"Sin" means "Missing". To be in sin, is to be away from God. To be away from God is to be in hell. When we are in purgatory, we feel as though God has abandoned us, but he has not; this is where hell differs from purgatory. In hell, God is truly absent.

Though this might sound dire, it is not, for God so loved the world that he came down to Earth to die on a tree and take up our collective curse. Therefore, acceptance, and the repentance that follows, is all that is needed to be back in God's love. In essence, God simply wants to be loved, just as we all do.

Jesus tells us that he provides the living water. Jesus ministered in the desert, where water was scarce. In the desert, people burn. Christ came to offer us hope and comfort. With Christ, we no longer burn, we are quenched with peace and love. Amen.