Heaven, Hell and the Spirit of Christmas

Eternity has been on my mind lately. That’s kind of like saying that you had a fleeting thought about a classical work of literature or caught a quick glance of the Sistine Chapel I suppose. How much can we really understand about something so vast and far reaching even if we devoted our entire lives to it? Not surprisingly, my thoughts feel incomplete and a bit underwhelming, but that’s never stopped me from sharing what’s in my head before :-)

I think these thoughts come from a few quotes I read in book recently. The Book is “Looking for God in Harry Potter” by John Granger. At one point the author talks about how at the end of the first HP book, the villain’s hands and skin burn when coming in contact with Harry Potter who is protected by love. “Rowling (the HP author) tells us in graphic story form here the traditional Christian doctrine concerning God’s judgment and the nature of heaven and hell,” Granger writes. He then offers a couple of quotes from Christian theologians that I found interesting…

God is Truth and Light. God’s judgment is nothing else than our coming into contact with truth and light. In the day of the Great Judgement all men will appear naked before this penetrating light of truth. The “books” will be opened. What are these “books”? They are our hearts. Our hearts will be opened by the penetrating light of God, and what is in these hearts will be revealed. If in those hearts there is love for God, those hearts will rejoice seeing God’s light. If, on the contrary, there is hatred for God in those hearts, these men will suffer by receiving on their opened hearts this penetrating light of truth which they detested all their life.

--Alexandre Kalomiros, River of Fire (Montreal: Monastery Press, 1982), 18

God himself is both reward and punishment. All men have been created to see God unceasingly in his uncreated glory. Whether God will be for each man heaven or hell, reward or punishment, depends on man’s response to God’s love and on man’s transformation from the state of selfish and self-centered love, to God-like love which does not seek its own ends…The primary purpose of Orthodox Christianity, then, is to prepare its members for an experience which every human being will sooner or later have.

-- Ioannes Romanides, Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1982), 46

I just thought these were very insightful in contemplating the concept of Hell. Basically it is misery not because God wish’s it to be so, but because we were created to be one with God’s love and if we choose to live for ourselves, apart from Him, then his love will be nothing but wasted potential. Mom and Dad used to quote Monsignor O’Brain as saying, “Love goes out” and I would that “Sin stays in.”

The kids and I just finished reading “A Christmas Carol” and of course this holiday favorite also deals with eternity and how the lives we choose to live affect our forever destiny. One part that jumped out to me was just after Marley leaves Scrooge and he looks out his window and sees all kinds of destitute spirits in the air. The book reads…

“He [Scrooge] had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.”

--Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Of course that book has a happy ending in which Scrooge comes to a realization of what life is about and the good we choose to do or leave undone. What’s so inspiring to read is that while he initially changes out of fear of his future, Dickens shows what a more joy filled existence he experiences once he embraces the spirit of Christmas. I’ve had small tastes of this in my life as well. In a way I think we all go through Scrooge’s story to one extent or another, likely many times in our lives and that is why the story resonates with us. It gives us hope. While the story depicts the misery that can lie ahead of an unfulfilled existence, it also shows us that Heaven and Hell aren’t realities that simply greet us when we die. We experience them right now in a way through how we live our life each day. Scrooge was miserable in the beginning and on cloud nine in the end not because of something God or others did, but simply because of the choices he made. Eternity starts now for each one of us.

I know this is getting long but I had another question in my head that spawned from thinking about all of this and I’d love to get all of your thoughts on it as I really don’t have a good answer. If Heaven is a perfect place where God’s love is perfectly fulfilled, then how is this achieved if all of His creation is not united there together? Paul says we are each a unique and important part of the body of Christ, so if one of those parts is missing, isn’t part of God’s love less then it could or should be? I’ve never really considered this till just now and it’s a bit deep so no worries if I’ve lost you, but it’s perplexing in my mind. I suspect that the answer may be found in how our existence in this life is never everything it could be and yet God raises up what we give Him and makes it perfected. I think again Paul said something to this extent as well. Our Heavenly Father is the master at bringing beauty from ashes and I’ve seen Him do this many times. In many ways I would argue it’s the greatest miracle he could give us. Still it’s a mystery and I don’t fully understand it and thought it was something worth pondering for a bit.

 

Best not worry about it too long though. Today is in front of us and full of potential. Don’t wait for Christmas. Choose to live in the spirit of Christmas today and always.