EXPLORE
GOD'S LOVE
If
Jesus and God are the essence of love, why does the Bible
so often threaten us with hell and damnation?
Then
the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and
foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For many are
called, but few are chosen. —Matthew 22:13-14
Hell,
again?
Oh, stop it, for heaven's sake—if Jesus makes one more offhanded remark
about throwing people into the fires of hell, I'm tossing my WWJD bracelet.
Actually, I don't have a WWJD bracelet. I
so seldom know What Jesus Would Do, and don't wish to insult him by assuming
he'll rubber-stamp whatever action I might be leaning toward.
Jesus is near to me. I feel his presence many times a day, talk to him frequently,
read about him in scripture every morning. I'm expecting to be with him eternally
when I'm finished here, and I think that eternal life with him has already
begun for me, only I'm too dim to experience it fully now, distracted as I
am by everything being alive in the world involves. Jesus and I have a relationship,
and I don't have a relationship more important than the one I have with him.
But I don't always know what he thinks. He has surprised me too many times
for me to assume anything. I try to follow him, but his way is sometimes a
mystery, and I stumble frequently. I'm in the dark a lot.
The people in the story Jesus tells about the wedding feast are as clueless
as I am. Their priorities and obsessions get in their way as much as mine get
in my way. They don't know what's expected of them, like the one who came to
the wedding in his jogging suit, and so they take a guess and get it all wrong.
This guy's fashion mistake had really bad consequences, but most of our mistakes
get us into some kind of trouble, and some of it is pretty serious. We raise
plenty of Hell right here, without anybody needing to toss us anywhere fiery.
I read and wonder, puzzle over his words, look to see what others have thought
about them over the centuries. I absorb arguments about whether all the words
we think are his really are, and what it would mean if some of them were not.
I don't feel guilty about any of these explorations:
we're supposed to explore and wonder about things, including the things of
God. We have a relationship
with Jesus, and we can trust him to correct the errors we will certainly make
and help us to grow into him.
--Barbara
Crafton
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