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| The Harrowing of Hell |
I've listened to a good few sermons, and a few good sermons, since I retired. And actually 'listened' even more since I stopped preaching. And since I retired I've come to the conclusion that all serving clergy should be required to listen to at least one sermon a month other than their own, if only to expose them to the heresy being preached in the Church of England, and increasingly so it seems, as time goes by. I've honestly sat there sometimes, mentally reviewing what's being said, with such saintly thoughts as, 'Mother of God, what bo****ks is this??!!'
Now I'll admit, in the past, to having gone a bit 'off piste' myself from time to time with my sermons. It's been especially evident when the Satanic push back has come along, which it has fairly often, particularly when I've been desperate for a new way of saying something that I've said dozens of times before. It's been tempting then to spin my own interpretation purely for effect, or to get people to agree with me or get them on side in the spiritual war of attrition that Beelzebub has waged between me and the congregation. (And will still be waging between me and you now!) Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to what I'm talking about as offering 'cheap grace.' As I look back over the years, I don't think I did too badly at sticking to the Party line, or, should I say, the Gospel as received by the Apostles and handed on through Holy Tradition.
The miracle of Easter is a time when it's tempting to steer clear of the hard, difficult to explain bits of the work God did in Jesus Christ. Because it's hard for we clergy to understand and get to grips with, we may think we have to soften it up for our hearers. So we can succumb to the temptation to change the language and/or, God forbid, tamper with the theology. We can do it in our sermons and rather more worryingly (because it'll be repeated week after week) write it in those bits of the services we can make up for ourselves. And one of the worst 'offences' in making it easier is what I'll call 'stopping short.' This offence I'd say is akin to what C.S. Lewis says in his book The Screwtape Letters, about the road to hell - it's 'soft under foot, without turnings, without signposts and slopes gently downwards.'
Two things I've heard said at Easter are examples of this 'stopping short' and in doing that, missing entirely the point of Easter. (And just as an aside, it's interesting to note at this point that the Greek word for sin means 'missing the mark'.) I've heard it said from the pulpit that Easter is about Jesus dying on the cross to save the whole of humankind from their sin so that everybody in God's mercy will go to heaven. There's at least a couple of things here that are not in accordance with the Gospel. But I don't want to nit pick, I'll just say that this is an example of 'stopping short' which leads us to miss the real point of Easter.
Another thing I've heard at Easter is that Jesus 'came alive'. This again is a wonderful, or dreadful example of stopping short. And a good example of where the language we use can either make or break the Gospel message. Jesus didn't simply 'come alive', as though his heart and lungs just suddenly started working again and he got up and walked away. The miracle of Easter is much more profound than what's said here about coming alive, and what was said in the paragraph above, about Jesus dying to save us from our sin.
The miracle of Easter is about - DEATH. Yes, death. And it's beautifully summed up in words from what's known as the 'Short Eucharistic Preface' for Easter (that can be said when the bread and wine are being consecrated) in our service book Common Worship. Listen to this. This is what it says:
"But chiefly are we bound to praise you
because you raised him gloriously from the dead.
For he is the true paschal lamb who was offered for us,
and has taken away the sin of the world.
By his death he has destroyed death,
and by his rising to life again he has restored to us everlasting life."
Do you see?
Jesus didn't 'come alive'. God raised Jesus from the dead. I see a difference, and not just a marginal difference, but a very profound difference. Do you?
And yes, in dying Jesus took away the sin of the world. (The preacher was at least right there) But Jesus didn't stop short there. In dying he destroyed death itself. And THAT'S the point. St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians says that Jesus put all his enemies under his feet and 'the last enemy to be destroyed is death' (1 Corinthians 15.26) And through that we become what Adam and Eve were before sin took its hold, we are restored to everlasting life. The Easter Icon above shows Jesus hauling Adam and Eve out of hell, restoring them to everlasting life.
Death; physical, psychological and spiritual death is annihilation. And it's that annihilation that we are saved from through the Easter miracle. Sin is a step that leads to death, to annihilation. So we aren't just saved from our sin.
Now I won't pretend to know what all that actually and really means for me or anybody else. I might never come to know, yet I hope I will. But it's what the Apostles preached and taught and it's been at the heart of the catholic faith ever since, so I won't ever stop short of preaching it, or writing about it and neither should anyone else who is charged with passing on the Gospel. For those who believe, it is literally a matter of life or death.
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
